Etymologically

eiecto

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 23 October 2026 at 11:57. This address is a permanent link to this version.

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [eːˈjɛk.toː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [eˈjɛk.to][1]

Forms

ēiectō (present infinitive ēiectāre, perfect active ēiectāvī, supine ēiectātum); first conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is a frequentative, from Latin ēiciō (“to throw out”) + -tō.[2][3][1] The TLL compares iactō (“to throw about”), the frequentative of the simple verb.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Virgil, who uses it of spitting out blood: cruōrem ōre ēiectantem mixtōsque in sanguine dentēs, “spitting blood from the mouth, and teeth mixed with the blood”.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it a poetic word of the Augustan age, and the TLL finds it mostly in poets.[3][4] Ovid uses it of the burning earth throwing up ash, of sand thrown up, and of spitting out bloody food;[3][4] Silius Italicus of the river Aufidus throwing its waters over the fields, and Statius of the gold that Spain casts up from its mines.[3][4] Seneca brings it into prose for the particles that the earth sends up into the air.[4]

Ammianus Marcellinus uses it of a river emptying into the sea, and in the passive of a river flowing out: the Nile issues through seven mouths.[4] Ancient glossaries explain it by ēmittit and ēructat.[4]

Timeline

  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of spitting out blood.[2][6]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of ash and sand thrown up.[3][4][6]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it in prose.[4][6]
  • c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus uses it of rivers discharging into the sea.[4][6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To throw out, cast up, discharge (fire, ash, water and the like).[2][3][4]
  2. To spit out, vomit.[2][3][7]
  3. (of a river) To pour out (into the sea); (passive) to flow out.[4]

Word family

  • ēiectāmentum
  • English eject

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn