gemo

Forms

gemō (present infinitive gemere, perfect active gemuī, supine gemitum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Most scholars, and Lewis & Short, connected it with Ancient Greek γέμω (gémō, “to be full”), from a root meaning “to grasp, press”, but de Vaan finds the change from that to “groan” hard to imagine.^[2][4][1] He reports instead Vine's link with γέγωνα (gégōna, “to shout so as to be heard”) and Tocharian A ken- (“to call”), from a root ⟨*Gen(H)-⟩ “to call”, whose ⟨n⟩ would have become ⟨m⟩ after verbs such as fremō and tremō.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Amphitruo: none of us heard your wife neque gementem neque plōrantem, “either groaning or wailing”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Gemō is to groan or moan in pain, grief or effort, and is used of animals such as lions (Lucretius).^[3] Poets apply it to things that give out a deep, hollow sound: the shores of the Bosporus (Horace), a boat groaning under a heavy load (Virgil), a threshing floor under the flails, a trumpet, a forest.^[3] Transitively it is to lament or bemoan something, and with an accusative and infinitive to groan that something has happened (Cicero).^[3][1]

Döderlein contrasts suspīrāre, to sigh, an involuntary deep breath from an afflicted heart, with gemere, to groan, which is more of a voluntary act.^[5] Church Latin glosses it “lament, sigh, groan”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a groaning wife.^[3][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of groaning lions.^[3][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a boat groaning under its load.^[3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of groaning over a decree.^[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To groan, moan, sigh.^[3][1][6]
2. (of animals) To groan, roar.^[3]
3. (of things) To creak, resound, make a hollow sound.^[3][1]
4. (transitive) To bemoan, lament.^[3][1][6]

Word family

• circumgemō
• congemō
• gemebundus
• gemitōrius
• gemitus
• ingemō
• regemō
• adgemō
• congemīscō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de