Etymologically
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excors

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈɛk.skɔrs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈɛk.skors][1]

Forms

excors (genitive excordis); third-declension one-termination adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + cor (“heart”), “without heart”, the heart being taken as the seat of intelligence.[2][3][1][4] cor goes back to Proto-Italic *kord and Proto-Indo-European *ḱērd (“heart”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it from Plautus,[6] who has excors, caecus, incogitabilis, “senseless, blind, thoughtless”.[3] It means lacking intelligence.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means lacking intelligence, senseless, stupid.[2][3] Cicero asks what old woman could be found so senseless as to fear such things, and says that only the very foolish fail to see open flattery;[3] Horace uses it beside turpis, “base”.[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means foolish or unlearned,[7] and in Medieval Latin from Britain it is glossed sine corde, “without heart”, and with an Old English gloss.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has excors, caecus, incogitabilis.[3][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it and explains it from cor.[3][4][6]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace uses it in the Epistles and Satires.[3][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Lacking intelligence, senseless, silly, stupid.[2][3][1][7]

Usage notes

Cicero explained the word from cor: to some the heart itself seems to be the mind, ex quo excordes, vecordes concordesque dicuntur, “whence men are called excordes, vecordes and concordes”.[3][4] Lewis and Short compare āmēns, dēmēns, vēcors, īnsānus, vēsānus and dēlīrus.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press