fugito

Forms

fugitō (present infinitive fugitāre, perfect active fugitāvī, supine fugitātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin fugiō (“to flee”) + -itō, a frequentative.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first citation is Plautus' Asinaria: "do you think we are running away from our master?"^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It means to run away from or desert someone, and Lewis & Short find it mostly before the classical period.^[2][4] Terence has it without an object: a man was wretched with fleeing so that no one would know him.^[2][4] It also means to avoid or shun: in Plautus' Captivi someone is said to shun another's eyes.^[2] Ammianus Marcellinus has Greeks fleeing.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of running from a master.^[2][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of fleeing.^[2][4][3]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus of fleeing Greeks.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To run away from, flee, desert;^[2][4][1] (intransitive) to flee.^[2][4][1]
2. To avoid, shun.^[2][4][1]

Related words

• fugiō
• fuga

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press