Etymologically
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explosio

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛkˈspɫoː.si.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ekˈsplɔː.s̬i.o][1]

Forms

explōsiō f (genitive explōsiōnis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin explōdō (“to drive off by clapping, hiss off”) + -tiō.[2][1][3][4] The verb is formed from ex- (“out”) and plaudō (“to clap the hands”), and was first a word of the theatre, for driving an actor off the stage with noise.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only Classical author is Caelius Rufus, in a letter to Cicero: he passes over much, above all the explōsiōnēs of games and of funerals and of other follies.[4][6][2][7] The OLD takes it, with some hesitation, as the driving of a play off the stage;[2] Lewis & Short and Georges as a driving off by clapping,[6][3] and Gaffiot as booing, a bad reception.[8]

Semantic evolution

The TLL records one more use, in the Monarchian prologue to the Gospel of Mark, where one manuscript has explōsiōnem dēsertī for the driving out of Christ into the desert; the TLL thinks expulsiōnem, the reading of other manuscripts, the right one.[4]

In New Latin it took the sense “explosion”,[1] and it is the source of French explosion, Italian esplosione and Spanish explosión;[1] German Explosion and Swedish explosion are borrowed from it.[1] VOLI warns that the Classical word must not be translated with the Italian one.[9] English explode, from the Latin verb, still meant “to reject with scorn” when it was first used in the 1530s.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 50 BC – Caelius Rufus, writing to Cicero, uses it of the hissing off of games and funerals.[4][7]
  • 1530s – English explode is recorded in the sense “reject with scorn”.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A driving off with noise, a hissing off; disapproval.[2][6][3][8][9]
  2. (Late Latin) A driving out, expulsion (in one reading of a biblical prologue).[4]
  3. (New Latin) An explosion.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  8. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  9. ^ a b Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier