incesto
This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 19:19. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Pronunciation
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
- To make ritually impure, pollute, defile.[2][4]
- To defile by unlawful sexual relations, incestuous or otherwise; to dishonour.[2][4][1]
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de