Etymologically
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expeto

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [ˈɛk.spɛ.toː][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈɛk.spe.to][1]

Forms

expetō (present infinitive expetere, perfect active expetīvī or expetiī, supine expetītum); third conjugation[1] The perfect is expetīvī or expetiī.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ex- + petō (“to seek, aim at”).[2][3][1] De Vaan traces petō to Proto-Italic *pet-e/o- and a root Proto-Indo-European *pet- (“to fly”), with a shift from “fly” to “fly towards, try to get”; cognate with Ancient Greek πέτομαι (pétomai, “to fly”) and Sanskrit पतति (pátati, “flies”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has ut Iovis suprēmī multīs hostiīs pācem expetam, “to beg the peace of supreme Jupiter with many victims”.[2]

Semantic evolution

Expetere is “to ask for, request” (Cicero: he sought help from him though absent), and “to exact” a penalty.[2][5] It is to seek out a person, “to want, court” (Plautus: tē vult, tē quaerit), also with hostile intent (Ennius: adsunt, mē expetunt, “they are here, they are after me”).[2][1] With things it is “to seek after, covet, aim at”, with an infinitive “to desire to”, and of a place “to make for”.[2][5][1] Intransitively it is “to come about, befall” (Plautus: many things befall a slave).[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “to desire, seek eagerly”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: pācem expetam.[2][7]
  • 204–169 BC – Ennius: adsunt, mē expetunt.[2][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero: ab hōc auxilium absente expetīvit.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To ask for, request; to exact (a penalty).[2][5][1]
  2. To seek out, court (a person); to go after (an enemy).[2][1]
  3. To seek after, desire, covet.[2][5][1][6]
  4. To make for (a place).[2]
  5. (intransitive) To happen, befall.[2][1]

Word family

  • expetibilis
  • expetītor
  • expetēns
  • expetenter
  • expetessō
  • expetissō
  • expetitio
  • expetitus
  • petō
  • appetō
  • repetō

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b 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