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effodio

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word effodio

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 250–184 BC, Plautus
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European (*bʰodʰ-)
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin fodio
Latin defodio
Latin effodio
Latin confodio
Latin transfodio

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛfˈfɔ.di.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [efˈfɔː.di.o][1]

Forms

effodiō (present infinitive effodere, perfect active effōdī, supine effossum); third (-iō variant) conjugation[1] It is also spelled ecf- and exf-.[2][3] Plautus has the passive infinitive ecfodīrī.[2][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + fodiō (“to dig”).[2][5][1] The verb fodiō goes back to Proto-Italic *foþ-i- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰodʰ-i- (“to poke, dig”).[4] Cognate with Hittite padda- (“to dig”) and Lithuanian bèsti (“to stick, drive in, dig”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,[4] whose miser in the Aulularia digs up a pot full of gold.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to dig up or out, as in Cicero's metals that would not be mined without human work.[2][3] Plautus also uses it of gouging out the eyes, and Petronius of scoring out words with a harsh pen.[2] It is also to break up the ground by digging, as Livy's soldiers who had buried their heads in the dug earth, and to make something by digging, as Plautus' digger who dug ten pits a day.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “dig out, excavate, break through”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of digging up gold and of gouging out eyes.[2][4][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of mining metals.[3][7]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of dug earth.[2][7]
  • before 66 AD – Petronius of erasing words.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To dig up, dig out; to mine.[2][3][1]
  2. To gouge out the eyes; to score out a word.[2]
  3. To break up the ground by digging.[2]
  4. To make by digging, excavate, hollow out.[2][1]

Word family

  • effossio

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
Cite this entry

“Effodio.” Etymologically, 19 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/effodio. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·