eloquor

Forms

ēloquor (present infinitive ēloquī, perfect active ēlocūtus sum); third conjugation, deponent^[1] Plautus has the spelling exlocūta.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from ex- (“out”) and loquor (“to speak”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces ⟨loquor⟩ to Proto-Italic *(t)lokʷe- and Proto-Indo-European *tlokʷ- (“to talk”), cognate with Old Irish ad·tluchedar (“gives thanks”) and Russian толк (tolk, “meaning”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus is its first author,^[4][5] whose Stichus has “what? did you say Epignomus?” and whose Menaechmi has “I have told you the guests”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to utter or say, to put ideas into words, as Cicero's man who thinks rightly but cannot express it elegantly, and absolutely to speak as an orator.^[2][6] It is also to reveal in words or divulge, as in Plautus, Ovid and Virgil.^[2] Quintilian defines it as bringing out all one has conceived in the mind and conveying it to the hearers.^[6]

Church Latin glosses it “clarify, elucidate, speak out”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of saying and telling.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of expressing thoughts.^[2][5]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian defines it.^[6][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To utter, say; to express in words;^[2][6] (absolute) to speak (as an orator).^[2][6]
2. To reveal, divulge, tell.^[2]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To clarify, explain.^[7]

Word family

• ēlocūtilis
• ēlocūtiō
• ēlocūtōrius
• ēlocūtrix
• ēloquentia
• ēloquium
• inēloquēns
• perēloquēns

Related words

• loquor
• ēloquēns
• ēnūntiō
• prōloquor

Usage notes

Döderlein sets it beside ēnūntiāre: both are uttering a thought, but ēloquī aims at the most perfect expression, so that ēlocūtiō belongs to rhetoric, while ēnūntiāre only makes the thought known, so that ēnūntiātiō belongs to logic.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper