frondeo

Forms

frondeō (present infinitive frondēre, perfect active fronduī, supine fronditum); second conjugation, no passive^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin frōns¹ (“foliage, leaves”) + -eō, a verb made from the noun.^[2][1][3] De Vaan calls the origin of frōns¹ unsure: Walde and Hofmann hesitantly compare Germanic words for “brim, bud”, and Solmsen a Russian word for “lawn” and Ancient Greek θρόνα (thróna, “herbs, flowers”), but that needs an extra suffix; he allows that the Greek and Latin words might go back to the same Mediterranean substrate word.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Cato.^[3] Lucretius has it of the time when the earth comes into leaf and everything flowers.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The TLL records it in Cato, Accius, Varro, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Columella, Pliny the Elder and later poets, and notes that it is missing in Plautus, Terence, Cicero, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Livy, Tacitus and Seneca.^[3] Virgil's nunc frondent silvae, “now the woods are in leaf”, is a typical use.^[5] It is used of plants putting out leaves and of places full of green trees.^[2] Stelten gives “be leafy, flourish”.^[6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato, the first instance.^[3][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of the earth coming into leaf.^[5][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of woods in leaf.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of plants, to have or put forth leaves; to be in leaf, become green.^[2][5][1][6]
2. Of places, to be full of green trees, be leafy.^[2]

Word family

• frondātiō
• frondātor
• frondēscō

Related words

• frōns¹
• frondōsus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de