evello

Forms

ēvellō (present infinitive ēvellere, perfect active ēvellī, supine ēvulsum); third conjugation^[1] The perfect is ēvellī in Cicero and ēvulsī (ēvolsī) from Seneca and Florus on.^[2][3] Plautus has the spelling exvello.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- (“out”) + vellō (“to pluck”).^[3][4][1] De Vaan traces vellō to Proto-Italic *weln-e/o- and a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *ul-n(e)-h₃- (“to strike”);^[5] Schrijver prefers a form with a dental.^[5] Cognate with South Picene ehuelí (“tears down”), Hittite walh- (“to hit, strike”) and Ancient Greek ἁλίσκομαι (halískomai, “to be caught”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is Plautus' Truculentus: “I'll tear your curls out right from your brain”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means to tear out by the roots or pull out, as Livy's tree, Pliny the Elder's teeth, and Cicero's report of a boast of having torn out Cato's tongue; it is also to tear away what is fixed, as Caesar's iron pulled out and Cicero's censer returned with its ornament torn off.^[3][2] Cicero uses it of a letter that elegant usage has removed from certain words, and figuratively of rooting out established opinions.^[3] Church Latin glosses it to pull, pluck out, tear.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of tearing out curls.^[3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a censer stripped and of opinions rooted out.^[3][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of a spear pulled out.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of an uprooted tree.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tear out by the roots, pull or pluck out, uproot.^[3][2][1]
2. To tear out or away something fixed.^[3][2]
3. To take out; figuratively, to root out, eradicate.^[3][1]

Word family

• ēvulsiō

Related words

• vellō
• convellō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b 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. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de