emorior

Forms

ēmorior (present infinitive ēmorī or ēmorīrī, perfect active ēmortuus sum); third (-iō variant) / fourth conjugation, deponent^[1] Plautus and Terence have the infinitive ēmorīrī.^[2][3] Manuscripts of Celsus have a perfect participle ēmortus.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + morior (“to die”).^[2][1][4] De Vaan traces morior to Proto-Italic *morje- (“to die”) and Proto-Indo-European *mr-ie/o- (“to die”), comparing Sanskrit म्रियते (mriyáte, “to die”), Lithuanian mir̃ti (“to die”) and Old Irish marb (“dead”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus, who says that one man is alive and the other dead.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

It is to perish or die, a frequent and classical word.^[2][5] Columella uses it of barley that dies in muddy soil, Celsus of a limb that slowly dies, and Mela of the Euphrates petering out into a thin stream.^[2] Figuratively it is of feelings or activities that die away: Plautus asks what use it is to be kind in words if one's help is dead.^[2] Commenting on Terence's ēmorīrī, Donatus says that comic poets give foolish speakers faulty forms as well as foolish ideas.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a dead man and of help that dies.^[2][3][6]
• 190–159 BC – Terence has the infinitive ēmorīrī.^[2][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella of barley dying.^[2][6]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus of a dying limb.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To perish, die; of plants and tissue, to die off; of a river or fire, to die down.^[2][5][1]
2. Of a feeling or activity, to come to an end, die away, die out.^[2][1]

Word family

• ēmortuālis
• inēmorior
• superēmorior

Related words

• morior

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de