escendo

Forms

escendō (present infinitive escendere, perfect active escendī, supine escēnsum); third conjugation^[1] The spellings exscendō and excendō are also found, and an inscription has the perfect escidit.^[2][3][4] Manuscripts constantly confuse it with ascendō and dēscendō.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + scandō (“to climb”).^[2][4][1] Wiktionary explains the spelling with ⟨esc-⟩ for ⟨exsc-⟩ as a simplification of the cluster, as in sescentī (“six hundred”).^[1] De Vaan traces scandō to Proto-Italic *skand-e/o- (“to ascend”) and an aorist Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to jump up, ascend”).^[5] Cognate with Sanskrit स्कन्दति (skándati, “leaps, springs”) and Old Irish sceinnid (“jumps”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first examples in the OLD are in Plautus, of climbing up from a deep well to the top and of getting up into a chariot.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to go up to a higher place, ascend, and especially to get up on a platform, a vehicle or a ship, as Terence's “he went on board”.^[2][3] Lewis & Short call it rare but classical.^[3] Varro uses it of water rising to a given depth, and an inscription of a child “rising three”.^[2] Festus has it in the opposite sense, to get down out of a chariot.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of climbing out of a well and into a chariot.^[2][6]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of boarding a ship.^[2][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of water rising.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go up, ascend, mount; to get up on a platform, vehicle or ship.^[2][3][1]
2. Of water, to rise.^[2]
3. Of age, to advance towards.^[2]
4. To climb out of a vehicle.^[2]

Word family

• escēnsiō
• escēnsus

Related words

• scandō
• ascendō

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes scandere, to climb a steep height with effort, from adscendere, simply to go up, and escendere, to mount a fortified height or one that brings distinction, such as the rostra;^[7] conscendere is to mount with others, as a ship.^[7]

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 n 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. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper