exarmo

Forms

exarmō (present infinitive exarmāre, perfect active exarmāvī, supine exarmātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- (“out of, away”) + armō (“to arm”).^[2][3][1] The verb armō is derived from arma (“weapons”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)r-mo- (“fitting”), from the root meaning “to join”: its meaning moved from what is fitted together, or tools, to weapons.^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek ἁρμόζω (harmózō, “to fit together”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL dates it from Seneca the Elder,^[3] who has it of a ship stripped of its tackle: damnātum in exarmātā nāve dīmīsit.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it post-Augustan.^[5] It means to take away weapons, to disarm: Lucan uses it of hands and of the Medes, Tacitus of cohorts.^[2][5] Calpurnius has it of a snake whose venom has been blunted, and Velleius of the Romans weakened after the Italic war.^[2] Applied to a ship, it means to strip it of its rigging.^[2][5][1] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means to disarm.^[6]

Timeline

• Seneca the Elder – Of a ship stripped of its tackle.^[2][3]
• c. 20 BC–30 AD – Velleius, of the Romans weakened by war.^[2][7]
• 2nd third of the 1st century AD – Calpurnius, of a snake without its venom.^[2][7]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of disarmed cohorts.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To deprive of weapons, disarm.^[2][5][6]
2. To deprive (animals) of their natural weapons.^[2]
3. To deprive of military strength, weaken.^[2]
4. (nautical) To strip (a ship) of its tackle, dismantle, unrig.^[2][5][1]

Related words

• armō
• arma
• inermis

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c 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 e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de