flavesco

Forms

flāvēscō (present infinitive flāvēscere); third conjugation, no passive, no perfect or supine stems^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin flāvus (“golden yellow”) + -ēscō, an inchoative verb;^[2][1][3] Lewis and Short take it from flāveō (“to be yellow”).^[4] De Vaan traces flāvus to Proto-Italic *flāwo- and, with a question mark, to Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃-uo- (“yellow”), a reconstruction that would also take in Old High German blāo (“blue”) and Old Norse blár (“blue”); he thinks it hazardous, but finds no better alternative.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Conte cites it first from Cato, who writes that barley turns yellow, hordeum flāvēscit.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Virgil's fourth Eclogue the plain will slowly turn golden with soft ears of grain, mollī paulātim flāvēscet campus aristā.^[4][6] Ovid uses it of gold and of ivory that must not yellow, and Pliny the Elder of a beech leaf turning yellow very quickly;^[4][7] Georges notes that it was said especially of ripe grain, and of leaves and plants losing their green.^[7] Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.^[4]

The TLL records the spelling flavisc- in Ammianus, Paulinus of Nola and Venantius Fortunatus, and a gloss explaining it as albīscit.^[3] The Vulgate uses it in Proverbs.^[4]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of barley turning yellow.^[6][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a plain turning golden with grain.^[4][8]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of gold and of ivory.^[4][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of leaves turning yellow.^[4][8]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus writes it with ⟨-isc-⟩.^[3][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To turn yellow, become golden, as ripening grain.^[2][4]
2. Of leaves and plants, to lose their green, turn yellowish.^[7][4]

Related words

• flāveō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de