enitor

Forms

ēnītor (present infinitive ēnītī, perfect active ēnīsus sum or ēnīxus sum); third conjugation, deponent^[1] The perfect participle is usually ēnīxus in the sense “give birth” and ēnīsus in the other senses.^[2][3] Sallust uses ēnīsum est as an impersonal passive.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- (“out”) + nītor (“to lean, strive”).^[2][4][1] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of nītor, which he reconstructs as Proto-Italic *kniχw-et- and connects with cōnīveō (“to be tightly closed”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Pseudolus, of someone who soils his cloak while clambering to his feet.^[2][5][6]

Semantic evolution

It is to force one's way out or up, to climb, and also to struggle over mountains, as Tacitus has troops crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps.^[2][3] Terence uses it of taking pains for someone, and this sense of striving, often with ut or an infinitive, is common in prose.^[2][3] With a mother as subject it means to give birth: Varro writes of a pregnant woman who does not go far from her work and brings back the child she has borne there.^[2] De Vaan glosses it “to struggle out, give birth”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of struggling to one's feet.^[2][6]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of striving on someone's behalf.^[2][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of giving birth.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To force one's way upward, climb; to struggle out; to struggle over or across.^[2][3][1]
2. To take pains, strive, exert oneself.^[2][7][1]
3. Of mothers, to give birth to, bear.^[2][7][1]

Word family

• ēnixim
• enīxiō
• ēnixus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson