impendium

Forms

impendium n (genitive impendiī or impendī); second declension^[1] It is also spelled inpendium.^[2][3] Some inscriptions treat it as a feminine.^[4]

Etymology

It is from Latin impendō (“to pay out, spend”) + -ium.^[2][3][1] The TLL compares compendium (“saving”) and dispendium (“loss”).^[3] The verb is in- with pendō (“to weigh, pay”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *pend-e/o- (“to hang, weigh”) and Proto-Indo-European *(s)pend-e/o- (“to spin”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus.^[6] Varro explains it as the interest that joins sums together, as against the capital.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is money laid out, expense or payment, most often in the plural, and Lewis & Short compare sumptus and impensa.^[4] Cicero speaks of a man who made a profit without expense, and Varro uses it of interest on a loan.^[4][2] Figuratively it is cost or sacrifice, as Curtius writes that a huge victory cost so little.^[2] Church Latin glosses it charge, expense.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the noun.^[6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of interest on a loan.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of profit without expense.^[4][6]
• 1st century AD – Curtius of the cost of a victory.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Expense, expenditure, payment; interest on a loan.^[2][4][7][1]
2. Figuratively, cost, outlay.^[2][1]

Word family

• impendia
• impendiō
• impendiōsus

Related words

• impendō
• impensa
• compendium
• dispendium

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson