enato

Forms

ēnatō (present infinitive ēnatāre, perfect active ēnatāvī, supine ēnatātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + natō (“to swim”).^[2][3] The simple verb natō was built on an old past participle, Proto-Italic *(s)nato- (“bathed”), of nō (“to swim”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *(s)neh₂- (“to swim, float”).^[4] Cognate with Old Irish snaïd (“to swim”) and Ancient Greek νήχω (nḗkhō, “to swim”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds the intransitive use first in the Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero.^[3] The Rhetorica says that nobody can swim out safe from the shipwreck of the fatherland, ex naufragiō patriae salvus nēmō potest ēnatāre.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It means to swim out or away, to escape by swimming;^[2][6] Horace has the hopeless man who swims out of a wrecked ship, Phaedrus says that a few swim to safety, and Vitruvius speaks of possessions that can swim ashore with their owner after a shipwreck.^[5][6] Lewis and Short call it very rare.^[6] Figuratively it meant to struggle through a difficulty: Cicero writes of people who seem to be in straits but still get through, ēnatant tamen, and in Petronius a speaker says he got through, thanks be to someone's genius.^[6][5]

By extension it was used of things that float up: Vitruvius has oars sending up images to the surface of the water, and Manilius has the sun and the constellations rising out of the sea.^[2] The TLL dates the transitive use from the Bellum Alexandrinum,^[3] and Pacatus speaks of swimming across many rivers.^[5] The Vulgate has the form ēnatāsset in Acts.^[3]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium uses it of swimming out of the shipwreck of the fatherland.^[5][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of getting through a difficulty.^[6][7]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of things floating up to the surface.^[2][7]
• 1st century AD – Manilius uses it of heavenly bodies rising from the sea.^[2][7]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it in Acts.^[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To swim out or away; to escape by swimming.^[2][6]
2. (figurative) To struggle through a difficulty, extricate oneself.^[6][5]
3. To float up; of heavenly bodies, to rise above the sea.^[2]
4. (transitive) To swim across.^[5][3]

Word family

• superenato

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de