gestio

Forms

gestiō (present infinitive gestīre, perfect active gestīvī or gestiī, supine gestītum); fourth conjugation, no passive^[1] Plautus has the archaic imperfect gestībant, and Gellius gestībat.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin gestus (“gesture”) + -iō, first “to make wild gestures”.^[3][4][5] The noun is from gerō (“to carry, conduct”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *ges-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ǵ-es- (“to carry”), a stem formed after the Indo-European period from the root of agō (“to drive”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4] whose characters say “I long to kiss now” and “my fists are itching”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means to desire eagerly or long to do something, and Pliny the Elder uses it of beans that do not want weeding.^[3] It is also to be impatient for action, and to be elated or exult, as in Plautus' “so that you don't seem to mock and exult”.^[3][2] Gellius and Apuleius use it in its first sense, of actors' expressive gestures.^[3] Döderlein contrasts the calm will of velle and optāre with cupere, avēre and gestīre, which express excited feeling and passion.^[6]

Church Latin glosses it “long for, desire eagerly; exult, be joyful”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of longing and of exulting.^[3][4][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of eager desire.^[3][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of beans.^[3][8]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius of actors' gestures.^[3][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To Long, desire eagerly (with an infinitive); of things, to require.^[3][2][1]
2. To be impatient, itch to act.^[3][2]
3. To be elated, exult, be transported with joy.^[3][2][1]
4. To make expressive gestures, gesticulate.^[3][1]

Word family

• praegestiō

Related words

• gestus
• gerō

Usage notes

A separate noun gestiō, -ōnis “doing, management” is formed from gerō with -tiō;^[3] Lewis & Short find it perhaps only in Cicero's De inventione,^[2] and Church Latin glosses it “management, administration”.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de