excudo

Forms

excūdō (present infinitive excūdere, perfect active excūdī, supine excūsum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + cūdō (“to beat, strike”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs cūdō as Proto-Italic *kūd-e/o- from Proto-Indo-European *kuh₂-d-e/o- (“to hit”), cognate with Lithuanian káuti (“to hit”) and Old Norse hǫggva (“to hew”).^[4] Festus, as epitomised by Paul the Deacon, derived it with prōcūdō and incūs (“anvil”) from caedō (“to cut”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4][5] whose Menaechmi has a ship saepe excussam malleo, “often hammered into shape with a mallet”; the OLD notes that this form may instead belong to excutiō.^[2] The TLL counts it only from Varro, Cicero and Virgil on.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Its basic sense is to hammer out, forge, fashion: Virgil foresees that others excudent spirantia mollius aera, “will forge breathing bronzes more gracefully”, and Curtius writes of iron put in the furnaces to be forged.^[2][6] Virgil also uses it of striking out a spark from flint, and of bees fashioning wax.^[2][7] In Varro, Cicero and Columella it means to hatch chicks or goslings.^[2][6] Figuratively it is used of literary work: Cicero promises to hammer out something in the manner of Heraclides, and Tacitus speaks of labouring to hammer out a single book.^[2][8] The TLL notes that outside farming it is found almost only in learned writers.^[3] In Neo-Latin it means to print, as in Aldus Manutius in 1497 and Erasmus in 1504.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has a ship hammered into shape, if the form belongs here.^[2][4][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of hatching chicks.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of forging bronze and striking sparks.^[2][5]
• 1497 – Aldus Manutius uses it of printing books.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hammer out, forge, fashion; figuratively, to compose a written work.^[2][6]
2. To strike out a spark or fire.^[2][7]
3. To hatch out young birds.^[2][6]
4. (New Latin) To print.^[9][1]

Word family

• excūsor

Related words

• prōcūdō
• incūs

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 d 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Ramminger, Johann, Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, www.neulatein.de