excolo

Forms

excolō (present infinitive excolere, perfect active excoluī, supine excultum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + colō (“to till, inhabit”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces colō to Proto-Italic *kʷele/o- and Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁-e/o- (“to go round”), with cognates such as Sanskrit चरति (cárati, “to move, walk”) and Ancient Greek πέλομαι (pélomai, “to move”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Varro.^[4] Varro writes that the Esquiline was so called because it had been cultivated by King Tullius.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to bring land under cultivation and to tend plants or stock, and so to work at anything to improve it: Ovid has the spinning of rough wool.^[2] Cicero speaks of developing the mind by learning, and Celsus says that the Greeks developed medicine much further.^[2] It is also to adorn, and to honour gods or cultivate a person: Phaedrus has fire through which piety honours the gods.^[2] Church Latin adds to ennoble or perfect.^[6]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro of land put under cultivation.^[2][4][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of developing the mind.^[2][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus of medicine developed by the Greeks.^[2][5]
• c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus of honouring the gods.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put land under cultivation; to cultivate plants, tend stock.^[2][7][1]
2. To work at something to improve it; to develop, refine a person, the mind or an art.^[2][7][1][6]
3. To adorn, decorate.^[2]
4. To honour a god or festival; to cultivate a person.^[2][1][6]

Word family

• excultor
• inexcultus

Related words

• colō
• cultus

Usage notes

A separate verb excōlō, from ex and cōlō (“to strain”), means to strain out; it is late, in Palladius and in the Vulgate's straining out of a gnat.^[7][3][6] The TLL derives Italian scolare and French écouler from it.^[3]

References

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