Etymologically
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excarnifico

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛk.skarˈnɪ.fɪ.koː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ek.skarˈniː.fi.ko][1]

Forms

excarnificō (present infinitive excarnificāre, supine excarnificātum); first conjugation, no perfect stem[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ex- + carnificō, from the intensive prefix and carnificō (“to execute, mangle”),[2][3][1] itself from carnifex (“executioner”), a compound of carō2 (“flesh”) and faciō (“to make, do”).[4][5] Terence has the spelling ⟨excarnu-⟩, as in the variant carnufex of the noun.[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Terence, who uses it in a figurative sense: in the Self-Tormentor a speaker complains that someone is always devising ways to torment him.[2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

The literal sense, to tear someone to pieces or kill them by torture, is in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods and in Suetonius.[7][8][9] Seneca uses it figuratively, of the words of a mind racked by anger,[2][9] and Ammianus Marcellinus uses it again in the sense to torment.[7] Lewis and Short call it a rare word.[7]

The Ecclesiastical Latin sense recorded by Stelten is to tear to pieces.[10]

Timeline

  • 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of mental torment.[2][3][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of tearing a person to pieces.[7][8][6]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca speaks of the words of a tormented mind.[2][6]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it in the literal sense.[7][6]
  • c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus uses it in the sense to torment.[7][6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To torture to death, tear to pieces; to punish with torture.[2][7][8]
  2. (figurative) To torment, rack (the mind).[2][7][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
  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 d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  9. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  10. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson