fatisco

Forms

fatīscō (present infinitive fatīscere); third conjugation, no passive, no perfect or supine stems^[1] Early writers use the deponent fatīscor: Pacuvius, Accius and Lucretius.^[2][3] It has no perfect or supine.^[1]

Etymology

It is from Proto-Italic *fati- (“exhaustion”), a noun preserved in affatim (“amply”) and also the base of fatīgō (“to tire out”) and fessus (“tired”).^[4][1] De Vaan thinks that the deponent fatīscor was probably formed after the compound dēfetīscor (“to become worn out”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Pacuvius,^[4] who has the deponent with an infinitive, numquam fatiscar, “I shall never tire”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense is to split open, crack or gape: Virgil warns against a threshing floor cracking from dust, and has ships letting in water through their opening seams.^[5][3] Lucretius has images worn out and falling apart.^[3] From this it came to mean to grow weary, as in Pliny the Elder,^[5] and to become exhausted, flag or fail: Columella says a ewe fails after its seventh year, and Tacitus has an army weakened by want and toil, and a mutiny dying down.^[5][3][2] Church Latin has it as to crack open, fall apart, decrease.^[6]

Timeline

• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius, in the deponent form.^[2][4][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of things falling apart.^[3][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of cracking ground and leaking ships.^[5][3][7]
• 1st century AD – Columella, of a ewe that has ceased to breed.^[5][7]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of an exhausted army.^[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To split open, crack, gape.^[5][3][1]
2. To grow weary.^[5][1]
3. To become exhausted, flag, fail; to die down.^[5][3][2]

Related words

• affatim
• dēfetīscor
• fatīgō
• fessus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de