Etymologically
Log in

exspiro

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 19 October 2026 at 17:22. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛks(ː)piː.roː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [eksˈspiː.ro][1]

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

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