exortus

Forms

exortus m (genitive exortūs); fourth declension^[1] The accusative plural exortos occurs in Varro.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin exorior + -tus,^[1][2] the noun of action of exorior (“to appear, arise”), a compound of ex- and orior (“to rise”).^[3] That verb goes back to Proto-Italic *or-i- (“to rise”) and Proto-Indo-European *h3r-i- (“to rise”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Pacuvius,^[3][4] in a line of tragedy saying that the sky takes on its brightness at the rising of the sun.^[1]

Semantic evolution

It meant the rising of the sun, of stars and planets, and the time when a wind begins to blow.^[1][5] From the rising of the sun it came to mean the east, the quarter of sunrise, often in the plural, as when Livy writes of a march from the west towards the east.^[1][5] Pliny the Elder uses it for the source of a river and for the place a wind comes from,^[1] and Pliny the Younger for the first appearance of an emperor.^[1][6]

In medieval Latin it kept the sense of sunrise, as in Bede, and also meant an origin or beginning, a spring, a birth and offspring.^[7][8]

Timeline

• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius uses it of the rising of the sun.^[1][4]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses the plural exortos.^[1][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the rising of a constellation.^[1][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it for the source of the Danube.^[1][4]
• first third of the 8th century AD – Bede uses it of sunrise in his work on time reckoning.^[7][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The rising of the sun or a star; the time when a wind begins to blow.^[1][5]
2. Emergence, first appearance.^[1][6]
3. Sunrise as a quarter of the sky, the east (also plural).^[1][5]
4. The source of a river or of winds.^[1][8]
5. (Medieval Latin) Origin, beginning; birth; offspring.^[7]

Related words

• ortus

Usage notes

Exortus, -a, -um is also the perfect participle of exorior.^[5][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b c Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill