filo

Forms

fīlō (present infinitive fīlāre, perfect active fīlāvī, supine fīlātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin fīlum (“thread”), a verb formed from the noun.^[2][1][3] It is the source of Italian filare, French filer and Spanish hilar.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Wiktionary dates it from the 4th century;^[1] the TLL's first example is in the Conflictus of Arnobius the Younger: lāna nētur aut fīlātur aut torquētur, “wool is spun, or drawn into thread, or twisted”.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is “to draw out into threads, spin”, used in Venantius Fortunatus of a girl spinning and of a ball of thread that Radegund had spun.^[2][4] Venantius also uses it figuratively, of a wound pouring out blood in a thin stream.^[2][3][5] A scholiast on Terence uses it to explain nēre, “to spin”.^[2] Medieval writers use it of spinning wool, silk and yarn, of animals that spin a thread around themselves, and in charters of women who spin and weave;^[6] Fredegar's chronicle has a play on spinning, with the phrase fīlō fīlābō, “I will spin a thread”.^[6] Wiktionary also gives the sense “to weave”.^[1]

Timeline

• 4th century AD – First recorded.^[1]
• 536–c. 610 AD – Venantius Fortunatus uses it of spinning and, figuratively, of flowing blood.^[2][7]
• 613–658 AD – Fredegar's chronicle has fīlō fīlābō.^[6][7]
• 1141 – A Lower Rhine charter speaks of what a woman has spun and woven.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To draw out into thread, spin.^[3][5][4]
2. (figurative) To pour out in a thin stream.^[5][2]
3. (Late Latin) To weave.^[1]

Related words

• neō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de