expaveo

Forms

expaveō (present infinitive expavēre); second conjugation, no perfect or supine stems^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + paveō (“to be afraid”).^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder is the first to use it, of people bitten by a rabid dog who dread drinking.^[3][4][5]

Semantic evolution

It is rare: Statius uses it in a preface with the object hanc audāciam stilī nostrī, “this boldness of our pen”,^[6][4] and Martianus Capella has it too.^[6][4] Palladius' history of the monks, in Latin, uses it with dē of a demon amazed at a trick.^[3] The TLL assigns the perfect expāvī to expavēscō.^[3]

Medieval writers used it both without an object, “to be afraid”, and with one, “to shrink from”: Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and the Carmina Burana have both.^[7] Latin texts from Hungary use it of dreading ruin or an uprising.^[8] Wiktionary lists Italian spavere as a possible descendant, and Romanian speria and Occitan espavordir as reshaped ones.^[1]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of those who dread drinking after a dog's bite.^[3][9]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it in a preface.^[6][9]
• 5th century AD – Martianus Capella uses it.^[6][9]
• 12th/13th century – The Carmina Burana use it of shrinking from what is given.^[7][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be terrified at, to dread.^{[2][6][4][10]}
2. (Late Latin) To be amazed (at something, with dē).^[3]
3. (Medieval Latin) To be afraid.^[7][8]

Word family

• expavidus

Related words

• expavēscō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ a b Bartal, Antal, et al. (1987–), Lexicon Latinitatis Medii Aevi Hungariae, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online ed. ELTE
9. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
10. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.