exhaurio

Forms

exhauriō (present infinitive exhaurīre, perfect active exhausī, supine exhaustum); fourth conjugation^[1] Seneca has the future participle exhausūrus.^[2] Manuscripts often spell it without h.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ex- + hauriō (“to draw (water)”).^[4][1][3][5] De Vaan traces ⟨hauriō⟩ to Proto-Italic *aus-je- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂eus-ie/o- (“to scoop”), cognate with Old Norse ausa (“to scoop”) and Ancient Greek αὔω (aúō, “to fetch a light”), whose sense narrowed to fire; its initial ⟨h⟩ may be a false addition.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Histories of Sisenna men sweat out the old wine by the fire.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

It is to draw off a liquid, and to drink up, as Cicero's Antony with his gullet full of wine.^[4] It is to take out or clear away, as Caesar's soldiers digging out earth with their hands and cloaks, and to empty, as Virgil's drained udder and Ovid's nearly empty quiver.^[4] It is to use up resources, strength or time, and to drain a person or a place of goods or men, as Verres stripped a host's house, or Livy's Latins drained by ten years of service.^[4] It is also to exhaust physically, to see a war through to its end, to carry out a commission (Cicero: to do all I asked), and to wipe out, as a plague no war could end.^[4] Lewis and Short find it classical mostly in the transferred senses.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “exhaust, empty out, end, remove”.^[8] English exhaust (1530s) comes from its past participle exhaustus.^[5]

Timeline

• 120–67 BC – Sisenna of drawing off liquid.^[4][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of drinking up, stripping a house and carrying out a commission.^[4][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of digging out earth.^[4][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of draining an udder and of wars seen through.^[4][7]
• 1530s – English exhaust.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To draw off (a liquid); to drink up.^[4][1]
2. To take out, clear away.^[4][1]
3. To empty, drain; to hollow out.^[4][1][8]
4. To use up, exhaust (resources, strength, time).^[4][1][8]
5. To strip, impoverish; to deplete (of men).^[4]
6. To weaken, wear out.^[4]
7. To see through to the end; to carry out (a task).^[4][1][8]
8. To wipe out, finish off.^[4]

Word family

• exhaustō
• inexhaustus
• exhaustus

Related words

• dehauriō
• hauriō
• perhauriō
• haustus
• English exhaust

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c d Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson