frustratio

Forms

frūstrātiō f (genitive frūstrātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin frūstror (“to deceive, disappoint”) + -tiō.^[2][3][1] The verb is from the adverb frūstrā (“in vain”), which Etymonline relates to fraus (“harm, deceit”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Plautus.^[3][5] In the Amphitruo Jupiter announces: in horum familiam hodie frustrationem iniciam maxumam, “today I will bring the greatest confusion on this household”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In Plautus it is a deception or trick: in the Mostellaria frustrationes dare is to make a fool of someone.^[6][7] From the deceiving of a hope it came to mean failure and disappointment: Varro says that farming without success and good result is a frustratio, not cultivation,^[2][6] and Plancus writes to Cicero of the pain that failure caused those who had courted him.^[6] Livy uses it of putting people off with pretexts and delays,^[6] and the jurists of a delaying or keeping back.^[6][1]

Medieval Latin in Britain kept the senses of frustrating or bringing to nothing, with a legal use for obstructing the course of justice, especially by delay, and of failure and disappointment.^[8] English borrowed it in the mid-15th century in a sense of nullification, and in the 1550s as “disappointment, defeat”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a trick or deception.^[2][6][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of failure in farming.^[2][6][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of deliberate delay.^[6][5]
• 533 AD – The Digest uses it for a delaying or keeping back.^[6][5]
• mid-15th century – English borrows it as frustration, first meaning nullification.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deception, trick, prevarication; a making a fool of someone.^[2][6][7]
2. Failure, disappointment, ill success.^[2][6][8]
3. A delaying, keeping back, putting off.^[6][1]
4. (Medieval Latin, law) An obstruction of justice, especially by delay.^[8]

Related words

• frūstrā
• English frustration

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press