Etymologically
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erado

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [eːˈraː.doː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [eˈraː.do][1]

Forms

ērādō (present infinitive ērādere, perfect active ērāsī, supine ērāsum); third conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + rādō (“to scrape”).[2][3][1] De Vaan traces rādō to Proto-Italic *rasd-e/o-.[4] Cognate with Welsh rhathu and Breton rahein (“to scrape, shave”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Varro on.[3][5] In Varro's work on farming, stubble is to be scraped off the meadows with rakes: de pratis stipulam rastellis eradi.[2]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is to remove by scraping or paring, and to scrape something clean or smooth:[2] Propertius has cheeks shaved smooth, and Columella scrapes away moss and pith.[2][6] From this it came to mean erasing writing or an engraved inscription, and striking a name off a list as a mark of disgrace: Suetonius reports that the senate ordered the inscriptions of Domitian to be erased.[2] Lewis & Short note that the word is ante-classical and returns from the Augustan period on;[6] the TLL finds it once each in Horace and Propertius, then in Celsus, Phaedrus and Seneca, and often in Tertullian.[3] In Church Latin it means to destroy, strike out, or cut off.[7]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro, of scraping stubble from meadows.[2][3][5]
  • 57/46–12 BC – Propertius, of cheeks shaved smooth.[2][5]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius, of erasing the inscriptions of Domitian.[2][5]
  • c. 1600 – Its participle ērāsus is the source of English erase.[8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To scrape away, pare off, remove by scraping.[2][6][1]
  2. To scrape clean or smooth; to shave.[2]
  3. To erase, delete (writing or an inscription); to strike a name off a list.[2][6][1]
  4. To abolish, eradicate, remove.[1][7]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d 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 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. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com