Etymologically
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hebeto

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈhɛ.bɛ.toː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈɛː.be.to][1]

Forms

hebetō (present infinitive hebetāre, perfect active hebetāvī, supine hebetātum); first conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin hebes (“blunt, dull”) + -ō.[2][3][1] De Vaan finds that neither hebeō (“to be blunt”) nor the adjective can be derived from the other, and sets up a common stem for both.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Virgil has it of the cloud that dulls the sight.[2][5] Lewis & Short think it perhaps not used before Augustus, and note that Cicero does not use it.[5]

Semantic evolution

It means to make blunt: Livy has spears broken or blunted, and weapons blunted on wounds.[2][5] It also means to dim light, as in Ovid where the kindly day dims the stars, and to deaden the force of something, as Ovid's flames of the bulls.[2] It is used of dulling the senses, as Virgil's cloud over the eyes and Pliny the Elder's sharpness of sight,[2][5] of making the body torpid, as limbs numbed in Valerius Maximus, and of soil made sluggish as if by poison in Columella.[2] Stelten gives "blunt, make dull".[6] English hebetate comes from its participle.[7]

Timeline

  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of dulling the sight.[2][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of blunted spears.[2][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of the stars dimmed by day.[2]
  • 1st century AD – Columella of sluggish soil.[2]
  • 1570s – English hebetate.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To make blunt.[2][5][1][6]
  2. To dim (light); to deaden the force of.[2][5][1]
  3. To dull (the senses or mind).[2][5][1]
  4. To make (the body or plants) torpid.[2]

Word family

  • hebetātiō
  • hebetātrīx
  • hebēscō
  • hebetēscō
  • hebes
  • hebeō
  • English hebetate

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 k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com