expallesco

Forms

expallēscō (present infinitive expallēscere, perfect active expalluī); third conjugation, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + pallēscō (“to grow pale”).^[2][1] The TLL derives it from ex and palleō (“to be pale”).^[3]

pallēscō is formed from that verb, which goes back to Proto-Italic *palwo- (“pale, grey”);^[4] de Vaan finds the Germanic and Balto-Slavic cognates hard to reconcile with the Latin ⟨a⟩ and also considers a loanword into the European languages.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus: viden ut expalluit!, “see how he has turned pale!”^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The Rhetorica ad Herennium lists blushing, turning pale and stammering as signs of a guilty conscience.^[5] Ovid, Lucan and Pliny the Younger also use it;^[5] Lewis and Short think it perhaps occurs only in the perfect.^[5]

In poetry it is also transitive, “to turn pale at, dread”: Horace has one who did not blanch at drinking from the Pindaric spring, and Silius Italicus uses it the same way.^[5][2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a person turning pale.^[5][6]
• 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium counts turning pale among signs of guilt.^[5][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it transitively, “to dread”.^[5][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it in the Metamorphoses.^[5][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To turn pale, grow very pale.^[2][5]
2. (transitive, poetic) To turn pale with fear of, to dread.^[2][5]

Usage notes

Charisius lists it among verbs of the third conjugation.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 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 d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de