fuco

Forms

fūcō (present infinitive fūcāre, perfect active fūcāvī, supine fūcātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin fūcus¹ (“orchil, red dye; rouge”).^[2][3][1] That noun is from Ancient Greek φῦκος (phûkos, “seaweed, orchil”).^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds the past participle from Cicero on and the other forms from Virgil on;^[3] Lucretius already has words “coloured” with a pleasing sound, lepido quae sunt fucata sonore.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Virgil uses it of dyeing wool and fleeces, Tacitus of colouring boards, and Horace has a paint made from crocodile dung.^[2][4][5] It was used especially of cosmetics: Ovid writes of the care of painting one's complexion, Seneca of a pleasure pale or painted, and Quintilian of plucked and painted bodies.^[2][4] Cicero uses it of things tinged with the same absurdities, Seneca of overdecorated speech, and Gellius says that any kind of style becomes deceptive when it is painted and overlaid.^[2][4][6]

Later writers used it for counterfeiting and corrupting: Symmachus of feigning, and Augustine of the souls of citizens being painted and corrupted.^[6] Ammianus speaks of the workers of purple dyeing, Cyprian of painting the eyes with black, and Jerome of dyeing the hair.^[5] Ecclesiastical Latin uses it for “paint, disguise”.^[7]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses fucata figuratively.^[2][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of dyeing wool.^[2][8]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of painting the complexion.^[4][8]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of make-up and of ornate speech.^[2][8]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it of corrupting souls.^[6][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To dye, stain, colour;^[2][4] (figurative) to tinge.^[2]
2. To paint with cosmetics, make up.^[2][4]
3. (figurative) To make speech ornate, overdecorate.^[2][9]
4. (Late Latin) To feign, counterfeit; to corrupt.^[6][7]

Word family

• fūcilis
• īnfūcātus
• infūcō
• dēfūcō

Related words

• fūcus¹
• fūcātus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.