exaspero

Forms

exasperō (present infinitive exasperāre, perfect active exasperāvī, supine exasperātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + asperō (“to make rough”).^[2][3] asperō is made from asper (“rough”), whose origin de Vaan thinks uncertain: perhaps Proto-Indo-European *h₂esp-i- (“cutting”), with Ancient Greek ἀσπίς (aspís, “shield”) as a possible cognate.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL reads it from Ovid and Livy on;^[3] in the Amores Ovid speaks of Triton roughening the shaken waves.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is to make rough or uneven, as Ovid's waves.^[2] In medicine it is to make sore or irritate: Celsus has the skin roughened by tiny pustules and the throat made raw, and Quintilian a voice roughened by a sore throat.^[2][5] Silius Italicus uses it of sharpening a sword on a stone.^[2] It also means to make worse, as Celsus' illness that flares up again,^[2] and, of people, to provoke and incense, as Livy's Ligurians who were to be calmed after being provoked.^[2] Pliny the Elder appears to use it once in the opposite sense, of palm fruit that soothes a cough.^[2] Lewis & Short note it is not found before Augustus.^[5] Stelten gives "provoke, embitter" for Church Latin.^[6] The English exasperate comes from its participle.^[7]

Timeline

• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of roughened waves.^[2][3]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of provoked Ligurians.^[2][3]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus of irritated skin and a worsened illness.^[2]
• 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus of whetting a sword.^[2]
• 1530s – exasperate appears in English.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make rough or uneven;^[2][5][1] (medicine) to make sore, irritate; to roughen (the voice).^[2][5][1]
2. To sharpen, whet.^[2]
3. To aggravate, make worse.^[2]
4. To exasperate, provoke, incense.^[2][5][6][1]
5. (medicine) To free from roughness, soothe.^[2]

Word family

• exasperātiō
• exasperātrīx

Related words

• asper
• asperō
• English exasperate

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 o p q r Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com