Etymologically
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exsurgo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛksˈsʊr.ɡoː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [eksˈsur.ɡo][1]

Forms

exsurgō (present infinitive exsurgere, perfect active exsurrēxī, supine exsurrēctum); third conjugation[1] It is often spelled exurgō.[2][3][4] Plautus has the archaic present passive infinitive exsurgier.[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + surgō (“to rise”).[2][4] De Vaan lists ⟨surgō⟩, from ⟨sub⟩ and ⟨regō⟩, under regō (“to direct”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *reg-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to stretch, direct”), cognate with Old Irish a-t·raig (“to stand up”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest example is a tragedy of Ennius: “rise, herald, get the people to listen”.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means “to rise, stand up”, from one's knees or from an ambush, and to get up from bed: in Plautus someone got up briskly in the dead of night.[2][3] Figuratively it is to bestir oneself, take action, as Cicero's anxious “when and where shall we be able to rise?”, and to rise in revolt, as Livy's plebs.[2] It is used of things that swell or rise up, of complaints that spring up, and of rising above one's grief.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “arise, awaken”.[6]

Timeline

  • 204–169 BC – Ennius of a herald rising.[2][7]
  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of getting up.[2][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of taking action.[2][7]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of a rising of the plebs.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To rise, stand up; to get up from bed.[2][3][1][6]
  2. To bestir oneself, take action; to rise in revolt.[2][1]
  3. Of things, to swell, rise up; to spring up.[2]
  4. To rise above, overcome; to recover.[2][1]

Word family

  • exsurrectio

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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ 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 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