immorior

Forms

immorior (present infinitive immorī, perfect active immortuus sum); third (-iō variant) conjugation, deponent^[1] It is also spelled inmorior.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + morior (“to die”).^[2][4][1] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *morje- and Proto-Indo-European *mr̥-ie/o- (“to die”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from the Culex and Horace on.^[4] Horace uses it hyperbolically of a man who “dies over” his pursuits and grows old in the love of gain (immoritur studiīs).^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a word of poetry and of post-Augustan prose.^[6] It means to die in or upon something, usually with the dative: in Ovid one sister dies upon another, and Pliny the Elder writes of honey in which bees have died.^[2][6] It also means to die in the middle of an activity or a suffering: Seneca has a man who dies while going through his accounts, and Quintilian someone who says he will die on his embassy.^[2]

Ecclesiastical and medieval Latin kept the sense “to die”;^[7][3] Florus of Lyon uses it of the grain that dies in the earth, after the Gospel of John, and the perfect participle could be a noun, “the dead woman”.^[7][3]

Timeline

• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it hyperbolically.^[2][4][8]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of dying upon someone.^[2][8]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of dying during an activity.^[2][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of bees dead in honey.^[2][8]
• second quarter of the 9th century – Walahfrid Strabo uses it in a poem.^[3][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To die in or upon something, in a particular place or position.^[2][6]
2. To die amid or during something;^[2] (hyperbolic) to wear oneself out over.^[2]

Related words

• commorior
• ēmorior

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de