extergeo

Forms

extergeō (present infinitive extergēre, perfect active extersī, supine extersum); second conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + tergeō (“to wipe, rub clean”).^[2][3][4][1] De Vaan lists it among the compounds of tergeō, for which he reconstructs Proto-Italic *terg- but finds no certain cognates outside Italic.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it from Plautus on,^[5] who has exterge tibi manūs “wipe your hands clean”.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

It means to wipe or rub clean, to scrub or scour: Cato tells the reader to wipe something well with a sponge,^[8][9] and Vitruvius uses it of garlands.^[6] Petronius has the sense to wipe away, of tears wiped off with the thumb.^[2][7] Cicero uses it jokingly in the Verrines, asking which shrine was not left swept clean, that is, plundered.^[6][7] Lewis and Short call it mostly ante- and post-classical.^[8] Beside the second-conjugation verb a third-conjugation present extergō is found, in Columella, the Digest and the Vulgate.^[2][6][9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of wiping the hands.^[5][6][10]
• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of wiping with a sponge.^[8][10]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it jokingly of a plundered shrine.^[6][10]
• before 66 AD – Petronius uses it of wiping away tears.^[2][10]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate has forms of the third-conjugation present.^[8][6][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wipe or rub clean, scrub, scour.^[2][6]
2. To wipe away.^[2][7]
3. (figurative, jocular) To strip clean, plunder.^[6][7]

Word family

• extersus

Related words

• abstergeō
• circumtergeō
• dētergeō
• pertergeō
• retergeō
• tergeō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
10. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de