exuro

Forms

exūrō (present infinitive exūrere, perfect active exussī, supine exustum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + ūrō (“to burn”).^[2][3] De Vaan traces ⟨ūrō⟩ to Proto-Italic *ouse/o- (“to burn”) and Proto-Indo-European *h1eus-e/o- (“to burn”), cognate with Sanskrit ओषति (oṣati, “burns”), Ancient Greek εὕω (heúō, “to singe”) and Old Norse ysja (“fire”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[3] who has revellers threatening to burn down a door in the Persa and a man threatening to burn out someone's eyes in the Menaechmi.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It means “to burn up, destroy by fire”, of buildings and of regions laid waste, and vīvum exūrere is to burn alive, as in Cicero's Verrines.^[2] It is also “to burn out”, as eyes, and in Vitruvius to use up by burning, of a lamp.^[2] Of heat it is to parch, as Catullus' fields cracked by the summer, to scorch the body (Tibullus), and to tan the skin, as Pliny the Elder's people burnt dark like Ethiopians.^[2] Martial uses it of fever burning the inner organs, and the elegists of Love's fiery eyes.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “consume, burn up”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of burning a door and eyes.^[2][3][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a man burnt alive.^[2][6]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of parched fields.^[2][6]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of a burning fever.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To burn up, destroy by fire; to burn alive.^[2][4][1][5]
2. To burn out; to use up by burning.^[2]
3. To parch, dry up; to scorch; to tan.^[2][1]
4. Of fever or poison, to burn; figuratively, to inflame.^[2]

Word family

• exustiō

Related words

• ūrō
• combūrō

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de