fingo

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈfɪŋ.ɡoː]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈfiŋ.ɡo]^[1]

Forms

fingō (present infinitive fingere, perfect active fīnxī, supine fictum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *finge/o- (“to knead, form”), a nasal present inherited from Proto-Indo-European *dʰi-n-ǵʰ- from the root *dʰeyǵʰ- (“to knead clay, form, build”).^[2][1] The perfect fīnxī is a later formation, while figulus “potter” and figura keep a form without the nasal.^[2]

Cognate with Faliscan fifiked (“made”), Oscan feíhúss (“walls”), Sanskrit देग्धि (dégdhi, “smears, plasters”), Ancient Greek τεῖχος (teîkhos, “wall”), Lithuanian žiẽsti (“to mould from clay”) and Gothic 𐌳𐌹𐌲𐌰𐌽 (digan, “to knead, mould”), related to English dough.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus onwards,^[2] who has a slave say that the wise man “shapes his own fortune”.^[4][3] Cato uses it of shaping a cake.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant to shape by hand from clay, wax or dough, and so to create, as of a god forming the world, and of sculptors to model a likeness.^[3][5] It meant to arrange or groom the hair, to train or mould a person, and to compose poems or coin words.^[3] It also meant to picture in the mind, to imagine or suppose.^[3]

From imagining it passed to inventing: to make up a story or charge, to feign or pretend, and in law to assume as a fiction.^[3][6] The participle fictus meant “false, hypocritical”.^[3] Through Old French feindre it gave English feign and English feint, and its derivatives fictio and figura gave English fiction and English figure.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of shaping one's fortune.^[4][8]
• 234–149 BC – Cato gives recipes for shaping cakes.^[3][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of Polyclitus modelling Hercules and of a god fashioning the world.^[3][8]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of inventing excuses.^[3][8]
• 2nd century AD – Gaius uses it for a legal fiction.^[3]
• c. 1300 – Through French it gives English feint.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To shape, form, fashion (from clay, wax, dough); to knead.^[3][5]
2. To create, produce.^[3]
3. To model, sculpt a likeness of.^[3]
4. To arrange, groom; to transform.^[3]
5. To mould, train (a person).^[3]
6. To compose (poems); to coin (words).^[3]
7. To devise, contrive.^[3]
8. To picture in the mind, imagine, suppose.^[3]
9. To invent, fabricate; to feign, pretend, (law) to assume as a fiction.^[3][6]
10. To touch, stroke gently.^[5]

Word family

• affingō
• circumfingō
• cōnfingō
• dēfingō
• diffingō
• effingō
• fictīcius
• fictilis
• fictiō
• fictor
• fictrix
• fictūra
• figulus
• figūra
• effigiēs

Related words

• English feign
• English fiction
• English figure
• English effigy

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de