incitamentum

Forms

incitāmentum n (genitive incitāmentī); second declension^[1] An inscription has the spelling intcitamentum.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin incitō (“to urge on”) + -mentum.^[3][1] incitō is formed from in- and citō (“to set in motion”), which de Vaan derives from cieō (“to set in motion”), with the participle Proto-Italic *kito- (“stirred”).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it first, in the Pro Archia, of the incentives to dangers and labours.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The TLL counts it once each in Cicero, Seneca and Pliny the Elder, more often from Curtius and Tacitus on, and never in poetry.^[2] It is whatever urges on or incites, a stimulus or incentive, often with a genitive: Tacitus has incentives to anger and to victory, and Curtius incentives of hope.^[3][5] Curtius and Tacitus also apply it to people: Darius is a great incentive to the enemy to attack, and Galba's murderers the fiercest stimulus to sedition.^[3][5] Pliny the Elder uses it physically, of the lion lashing its back with its tail as with a goad.^[3]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of an incentive to toil and danger.^[5][6]
• 1st century AD – Curtius of Darius as an incentive to the enemy.^[3][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of people who incite.^[3][5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. An incentive, inducement, incitement.^[3][5][7][1]
2. A person who incites, an instigator.^[3][5]
3. A spur or goad.^[3]

Related words

• incitō

References

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