Etymologically
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exsul

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈɛks.sʊɫ][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈɛks.sul][1]

Forms

exsul m or f (genitive exsulis); third declension[1] It is also spelled exul, the spelling of inscriptions and the OLD's headword.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed with ex- (“out of”), but the second part is disputed.[4][2] De Vaan sets up a Proto-Italic ⟨*ek(-)s(-)Vl-⟩ and weighs three explanations: a derivative of a verb ⟨*ex-sulere⟩ “to take out”, from the root ⟨*selh₁-⟩ “to take” of cōnsul and cōnsulō, so “one taken out”; the element ⟨*-al-⟩ “to walk” of ambulō, so “one who walks out”, which the OLD prefers; or the root of Ancient Greek ἐλαύνω (elaúnō, “to drive”), so “one driven out”.[4][2] Corssen related it to saliō (“to leap”), and Kornhardt derived it from exsiliō (“to leap out”).[5][3] The ancients connected it with solum (“ground, soil”), “one outside his native soil”, and the grammarians Caper and Scaurus insisted on spelling it with ⟨s⟩ for that reason; inscriptions, however, always write ⟨exul⟩.[3][2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL's earliest citation is Plautus, Rudens; de Vaan records the derived verb and noun from Plautus on.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

An exsul is a banished person, an exile, and so a wanderer: Cicero says that all the wicked whom the laws would banish are exiles even if they have not changed their soil, and has Hannibal come to Antiochus at Ephesus exsul.[5] Poets build it with a genitive (Horace: patriae quis exsul sē quoque fūgit?, “what exile from his country has fled himself too?”) and Sallust with an ablative.[5] It is masculine and feminine, and is also used as an adjective.[3][5] Publilius calls the stork the exile of winter, and Lucan uses it of a bull driven from the herd.[2] A saying of Publilius runs: an exile who has no home anywhere is a dead man without a tomb.[5]

Church Latin glosses it “banished; exile, refugee”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, Rudens.[3][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of exiles and of Hannibal.[5][7]
  • 1st century BC – Publilius of the stork, “exile of winter”.[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A banished person, an exile; a wanderer, refugee.[2][5][1][6]
  2. (of birds and animals) One that has left or been driven from its home.[2]

Adjective

  1. Banished, exiled.[3][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de