Etymologically
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explodo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛkˈspɫoː.doː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ekˈsplɔː.do][1]

Forms

explōdō (present infinitive explōdere, perfect active explōsī, supine explōsum); third conjugation[1] The spelling explaudō is also found, in Lucretius.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + plaudō (“to clap”).[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Georges cites it first from a fragment of Afranius, of a man driven off in Arpīnōs, to the people of Arpinum.[5][6] It was originally a word of the theatre, said of driving a player off the stage by clapping and hooting.[7][4]

Semantic evolution

Cicero writes that an actor is hissed and clapped off, exsībilātur et explōditur, and that if Aesopus is even a little hoarse he is driven off.[7][2] Lucretius speaks of driving away the night with clapping wings.[5] From this it came to mean to cast out, as when Seneca says of people struggling with the waves that fortune will not even cast them up on the sand,[2] and to reject or condemn an opinion: Cicero speaks of an argument explōsum et ēiectum, hooted off and thrown out.[2] Tertullian uses it of breaking wind.[5]

English explode, first recorded in the 1530s, at first meant to reject with scorn, a sense that survives in an exploded theory.[4]

Timeline

  • second half of the 2nd century BC – Afranius uses it of driving a man away.[5][6]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses the form explaudō.[2][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of actors hissed off and of rejected arguments.[2][7][6]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of fortune casting people out.[2][6]
  • 1530s – English borrows it as explode, “to reject with scorn”.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To drive (an actor) off the stage by clapping or hissing.[2][7]
  2. To eject, cast out.[2]
  3. To reject, condemn (an opinion or a person's claims).[2][7]

Word family

  • explōsiō

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press