exacuo

Forms

exacuō (present infinitive exacuere, perfect active exacuī, supine exacūtum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + acuō (“to sharpen”).^[2][3][1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first use is in Varro's work on agriculture, where a cutting is to be sharpened to a point without laying bare the pith.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the literal sense it meant to make sharp or pointed: Virgil uses it of stakes and of a boar whetting its tusks, Columella of props for vines, and Pliny the Elder of iron tools sharpened on a whetstone.^[5][6][7] Cicero transfers it to the mind, which sharpens the eye of the intellect, and Pliny to plants that sharpen the eyesight or the taste of vinegar.^[2][6][8] It also meant to spur on or stimulate, as when Cicero adapts a speech to rouse his hearers,^[2][8] and to intensify feelings: Plancus writes that his correspondent's kindnesses sharpen his anxieties every day.^[2] The grammarian Charisius notes that the prefix distinguishes it from the simple acuō.^[3]

Ecclesiastical writers used it for sharpening and whetting, and for stimulating or encouraging.^[9]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of sharpening a cutting.^[2][10]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of sharpening the mind and of rousing an audience.^[2][10]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of stakes and a boar's tusks.^[5][7][10]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of whetting iron tools.^[5][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sharpen, make pointed, whet.^[2][5]
2. To sharpen (the eyesight or the mind); to make sharper to the taste.^[2][6]
3. To spur on, stimulate, rouse.^[2][9]
4. To intensify, aggravate (feelings or conditions).^[2][1]

Word family

• exacūtiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de