eruditio

Forms

ērudītiō f (genitive ērudītiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ērudiō (“to educate, instruct”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,^[4] who writes to his brother Quintus that there is nothing to say about his instruction, since Quintus knows his talent.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is the action of teaching, instruction, but far more often it is the knowledge gained by instruction: learning, culture, or a branch of learning.^[2][5] Cicero speaks of a man without any learning.^[2] Döderlein distinguishes doctrina, learning as a particular kind of intellectual training, from ērudītiō, its learned result, the crown of intellectual cultivation.^[6] Church Latin uses it of learning.^[7] English erudition (c. 1400) first meant instruction.^[8] Since the 1520s it has meant learning or scholarship.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of instruction and of learning.^[2][4]
• c. 1400 – English erudition, instruction.^[8]
• 1520s – English erudition, learning.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The action of teaching, instruction.^[2][5][1]
2. Knowledge gained by instruction, learning, erudition, culture; a branch of learning.^[2][5][1][7]

Word family

• inērudītiō

Related words

• ērudītus
• English erudition

Usage notes

Lewis & Short compare doctrina, disciplina, scientia, intellegentia and cognitiō.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com