extundo

Forms

extundō (present infinitive extundere, perfect active extudī, supine extūsum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + tundō (“to beat, pound”).^[2][1][3] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *(s)tund-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *(s)tu-n-d- (“to thrust”), and de Vaan compares Sanskrit तुदति (tudáti, “to thrust, crush”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[4][5] in the sense of wringing something out of someone: prius quam id extudi, “before I had wrung it out”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic and post-Augustan, and not found in Cicero or Caesar.^[6] It means to beat or strike, as when Phaedrus’ ass kicks the lion’s forehead, and of a metalworker to hammer out a design in relief, as with the leaping Salii and naked Luperci in Virgil.^[2][7] Virgil also uses it of arts devised little by little with effort, and Celsus of a cough that forces out blood.^[2] Nonius glossed it as “extort” and “find out”.^[8] Medieval writers used it of breaking pieces off, of striking or coining, and of threshing chaff from grain.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of extorting something.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of hammering out figures in relief and of devising arts.^[2][5]
• c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus uses it of an ass kicking a lion.^[2][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it of a cough forcing out blood.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To beat, strike, hammer.^[2][10]
2. To hammer out (a design) in metal.^[2][7]
3. To devise or produce with effort.^[2][3]
4. To force out; to dispel.^[2]
5. To extort, wring (a promise or concession) from someone.^[2][4]
6. (Medieval Latin) To thresh out.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.