Etymologically
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incitamentum

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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]

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