Etymologically
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flavesco

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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]

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