exorno

Forms

exōrnō (present infinitive exōrnāre, perfect active exōrnāvī, supine exōrnātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + ōrnō (“to equip, adorn”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan lists it under ōrdō (“row, order”): ⟨ōrnō⟩ was its original verb, ⟨*ōrd-n-āre⟩, which kept the special sense “to adorn”; he finds a link of ⟨ōrdō⟩ with the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- of artus (“joint, limb”) attractive in meaning, though its ⟨d⟩-extension is not found elsewhere.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4] who has it of preparing a wedding and of a woman adorning herself: “I adorn myself for you, to please you”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to equip, furnish or prepare: in Plautus nothing gives more trouble than a ship and a woman once you start to fit them out;^[5][2] Lewis and Short note this sense is rare and not in Cicero.^[5][2] It is also to adorn a person or a place, as when Cicero says someone adorned cities with the finest statues and monuments.^[2] Transferred, it is to add distinction or honour: Pythagoras ennobled Magna Graecia with his teachings and arts, and Cicero speaks of himself as distinguished with command and the highest insignia.^[2] In rhetoric it is to embellish a theme.^[2]

Church Latin has it for adorn, provide with.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of preparing a wedding and adorning oneself.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of adorning cities and of distinction.^[2][7]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of things serving as equipment.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To equip, prepare, furnish, provide.^[2][5][1][6]
2. To adorn, decorate, beautify a person or place.^[2][1][6]
3. To add distinction to, ennoble; to honour.^[2]
4. (rhetoric) To embellish.^[2][1]

Word family

• exōrnātiō
• exornātor
• exornātulus

Related words

• ōrnō
• ōrdō

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 n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de