humo

Forms

humō (present infinitive humāre, perfect active humāvī, supine humātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin humus (“earth, ground”) + -ō.^[2][1] De Vaan traces humus to Proto-Italic *χomo- and Proto-Indo-European *dʰǵʰ-ōm (“earth”), comparing Oscan húnttram (“who is below”); the TLL compares Ancient Greek χθών (khthṓn, “earth”).^[3][4] Cicero explained the word from the bodies laid in the earth and covered with soil.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Varro,^[3] who says a dead man is buried who is covered with earth.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to bury, inter.^[2] Cicero notes that what was properly said of those covered with earth was by his time said of all the dead, and so it came to mean disposing of a body by any rite.^[2] He also tells of a man who buried an unknown corpse he found lying unburied.^[5] Lewis & Short call it rare but classical.^[5] Döderlein says it means laying in the earth, the last part of a burial, unlike sepeliō, the proper term for the whole rite.^[6] Church Latin glosses it to bury, inter.^[7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro of burial in the earth.^[2][3][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero on the word and its wider use.^[2][5][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cover with earth, bury, inter.^[2][5][1][7]
2. To dispose of a body by any rite; to perform funeral rites.^[2][1]

Word family

• circumhumatus
• humātiō
• humātor
• inhumātus
• inhumō
• obhumo

Related words

• humus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de