exspiro

Forms

exspīrō (present infinitive exspīrāre, perfect active exspīrāvī, supine exspīrātum); first conjugation^[1] Manuscripts very often write expīrō, which Priscian thought the more rational spelling.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + spīrō (“to breathe”).^[2][3][1] The verb spīrō goes back to Proto-Italic *spīr/s-; de Vaan thinks it may imitate the sound of breathing, and finds no direct cognates.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Accius,^[4] who has “you see the grove with vapour breathing out”;^[2] Lucilius has breath breathed out of the lungs.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It means to breathe out or exhale, as in Lucretius' heat that the earth breathes out, and Pliny the Elder uses it of pearls that lose their colour.^[2] Animam exspirare is to breathe one's last, and the verb alone means to die, as in Sallust's victim whose limbs were broken so that he would die limb by limb.^[2] Figuratively it is to come to an end, as in Livy's “would the state have died with me?”, and in law to lapse.^[2] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic and post-Augustan, and not used by Cicero or Caesar.^[5]

Church Latin glosses it “expire, die, exhale”.^[6]

Timeline

• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius of breathing out vapour.^[2][4][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of heat exhaled by the earth.^[2][7]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust of dying.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of the death of the state.^[2][7]
• c. 1400 – Its descendant enters English as expire “to die”, through Old French.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To breathe out, exhale; to give off; to lose.^[2][5][1]
2. To breathe one's last, expire, die.^[2][5][1]
3. To come to an end, perish;^[2][5] (law) to lapse.^[2][5]

Word family

• exspīrātiō

Related words

• spīrō
• spīritus
• English expire

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 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 e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com