incesto

Forms

incestō (present infinitive incestāre, perfect active incestāvī, supine incestātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin incestus (“impure, unholy”), with the verbal suffix -ō.^[2][3][1] The adjective is formed from in- (“not”) and castus (“pure, chaste”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus is the first to use it, in the Poenulus, of a man who loves a girl desperately but has never violated her: “neque eam incestavit umquam”.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

Its two senses are to make ritually impure and to defile by unlawful sexual relations.^[2] It is mostly poetic and post-Augustan:^[4] in Virgil a dead body “totamque incestat funere classem”, pollutes the whole fleet with death,^[2][4] and Statius uses it of defiling altars and of the Furies defiling the day;^[4] Claudian has it too.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of violating a girl.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a corpse polluting a fleet.^[2][5]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it of defiling altars.^[4][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make ritually impure, pollute, defile.^[2][4]
2. To defile by unlawful sexual relations, incestuous or otherwise; to dishonour.^[2][4][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de