exsculpo

Forms

exsculpō (present infinitive exsculpere, perfect active exsculpsī, supine exsculptum); third conjugation^[1] It is also spelled exculpō, and Vitruvius has exscalpō, with the vowel of the simple verb restored.^[2][3]

Etymology

The OLD and VOLI analyse it as from Latin ex- + sculpō (“to carve”).^[2][4] The TLL and Wiktionary derive it from ⟨ex-⟩ and scalpō (“to scratch, carve”),^[3][1] and de Vaan lists it among the derivatives of that verb;^[5] for scalpō de Vaan tentatively reconstructs Proto-Italic *skalp- and Proto-Indo-European *sk(e)lp- (“to split off”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the OLD date it from Plautus, whose speaker says vix exsculpsī ut dīceret, “I barely wormed it out by questioning”.^[5][2][6]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense is to cut or hollow out: Cato prescribes holes cut into timber, Varro has nesting holes carved in walls and explains fossa as the place from which earth was dug out, and Nepos tells how the Spartans chiselled verses off a monument.^[2][6] It also means to make by carving: Cicero once carved something out of oak that looked like an image, and Quintilian speaks of carving a statue out of millstone.^[2][6] Apuleius has the proverb nōn ex omnī lignō dēbet Mercurius exsculpī, “not every log should be carved into a Mercury”.^[7]

Figuratively it is to dig the truth out of someone, as in Terence,^[2][6] and Lucilius speaks of snatching prey from the mouth of a hungry lion, which Lewis & Short take as a proverb for something very hard or daring.^[6][2]

Medieval writers used it of carving images and fine reliefs, of chiselling inscriptions, and of gravediggers digging out bones.^[8][9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of getting an answer out of someone.^[2][5][10]
• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of holes cut in timber.^[2][10]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of wringing out the truth.^[2][10]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of carving in oak.^[2][10]
• c. 100–24 BC – Nepos uses it of erasing verses from a monument.^[2][10]
• 1163–1172 – Helmold describes Slavic gods carved with two or three heads.^[8][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hollow out (a cavity); to dig out or remove; to chisel out, erase (an inscription).^[2][6]
2. To make by carving, to carve.^[2][6][11]
3. (figurative) To dig or worm out (information); to extort.^[2][6]

Related words

• sculptor

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ Bartal, Antal, et al. (1987–), Lexicon Latinitatis Medii Aevi Hungariae, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online ed. ELTE
10. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
11. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.