Etymologically
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fatisco

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [faˈtiːs.koː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [faˈtis.ko][1]

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]

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