immuto

Forms

immūtō (present infinitive immūtāre, perfect active immūtāvī, supine immūtātum); first conjugation^[1] It is also spelled inmūtō.^[2][3] Terence has the archaic passive infinitive inmūtārier.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + mūtō (“to change”).^[2][1][4] De Vaan lists it under mūtuus, since both that adjective and mūtō presuppose a noun “(object of) change”, Proto-Italic *moito-; its further origin is either a root meaning “to exchange” seen in mittō or the root of mūnus, which he finds closer in meaning.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[5] in whose Amphitruo someone wonders how people have changed since they came home from abroad, and another asks where he was changed and lost his own shape.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is to make different, alter, and of attitude to change someone's mind: Cicero tells his audience that he feels they have been slightly changed.^[2] It is also to change the form of, metamorphose, as in the Amphitruo.^[2] It is to change by substitution: in the same play a character changes his clothes.^[2] In rhetoric it is to replace one word with another by metonymy, as in Cicero's words that are transferred or changed.^[2] Intransitively Lucretius uses it of things forced to change.^[2] Church Latin glosses it change, alter.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a changed shape and a change of clothes.^[2][5][7]
• 190–159 BC – Terence has the passive inmūtārier.^[3][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of things forced to change.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a changed audience and of metonymy.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To change, alter, modify; to change someone's mind.^[2][3][1][6]
2. To change the form of, transform.^[2][3][1]
3. To change by substitution;^[2] (rhetoric) to replace a word by metonymy.^[2]
4. (intransitive) To become changed.^[2]

Word family

• immūtābilis
• immūtātiō
• immutator

Related words

• mūtō

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 i j k l m n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b 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