exspuo

Forms

exspuō (present infinitive exspuere, perfect active exspuī, supine exspūtum); third conjugation^[1] Also expuō,^[2][3] and espuō in manuscripts.^[4]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + spuō (“to spit”).^[2][1][4] De Vaan traces spuō to Proto-Italic *spū̆-je/o- and Proto-Indo-European *sp(i)uH-ie/o- (“to spit”), an imitative formation;^[5] cognate with Ancient Greek πτύω (ptúō, “to spit”) and Lithuanian spiáuti (“to spit”).^[5] Donatus explains it as spitting out, that is, outside.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Pseudolus, of eyes spitting out a single tear.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is to spit out or simply to spit: Varro has tasting a fish and spitting it out, Celsus spitting blood, Ovid an octopus spitting out the hook, and Quintilian coughing and spitting often.^[2][6] Pliny the Elder tells of a tongue bitten off and spat into a tyrant's face, and of people who think it wrong to spit into the sea.^[2][3] Of things it is to eject or emit: Catullus asks what sea spewed someone out of its foaming waves, and Pliny has a star giving off fire, wood throwing out live coals and the sea casting refuse on the shore.^[2][3] Figuratively it is to rid oneself of something: Terence has spitting misery out of the mind, Lucretius reason, and Seneca life.^[2][6] Lewis & Short note that it is not in Cicero.^[3] Church Latin has “spit”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of shedding a tear.^[2][8]
• 190–159 BC – Terence, of spitting misery out of the mind.^[2][8]
• 116–27 BC – Varro, of spitting out a fish.^[2][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of spitting and of things ejected.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spit out; to spit.^[2][3][1]
2. To eject, emit, throw out.^[2][3][1]
3. To rid oneself of, banish.^[2][3]

Word family

• exspuitiō

Related words

• aspuō
• conspuō
• dēspuō
• inspuō
• respuō
• spūtō
• spuō
• spūtum

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 c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de