efflagito

Forms

efflāgitō (present infinitive efflāgitāre, perfect active efflāgitāvī, supine efflāgitātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + flāgitō (“to demand”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan takes flāgitō as an iterative of a lost verb meaning to whip, from Proto-Italic *flāg-e/o- (“to whip”): whipping someone as a punishment became scolding, and so demanding.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Cicero on,^[3] who uses it of a letter.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It means to ask for something insistently or imperiously, to demand:^[2][5] Cicero uses it of a letter, of a tribune's power demanded by the people's longing for the courts.^[5] Quintilian uses it of books asked for urgently.^[5] In the Verrines it apparently means to importune a person, as the boy's mother and grandmother did.^[2] Cicero and Quintilian have short perfect forms such as efflāgitāsset and efflāgitāstī.^[3] Stelten glosses it "entreat".^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of demanding a letter.^[5][3]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of books asked for urgently.^[5][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To ask for insistently, demand urgently, entreat.^[2][5][1][6]
2. To importune (a person).^[2]

Word family

• efflāgitātiō
• efflāgitātus

Related words

• flāgitō
• flāgitium

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson