Etymologically
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inclusio

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪŋˈkɫuː.si.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [iŋˈkluː.s̬i.o][1]

Forms

inclūsiō f (genitive inclūsiōnis); third declension[1] Late and medieval texts also spell it inclausiō.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin inclūdō (“to shut in”) + -tiō.[4][1] The verb is made from in- and claudō (“to shut”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero is its first author, in a sentence about the confinement of Bibulus: Bibulum, cuius inclūsiōne contentus nōn erās, interficere voluerās “not content with shutting Bibulus up, you wanted to kill him”.[2][5][4]

Semantic evolution

In Classical and Late Latin it is a shutting up, confinement or imprisonment;[4][5] a Psalter asks God to bring the soul out of confinement, and Cassiodorus uses it of the siege of a city.[2] The rhetorician known as Julius Rufinianus used it for the figure in which the same word begins and ends a sentence, the Greek epanadiplōsis.[2][5]

Gregory the Great used it of a monk's seclusion,[2] and in Medieval Latin it became the state of a recluse, the recluse's cell, and monastic enclosure, beside the older blockade and imprisonment.[3][6][7] British sources also used it of the fencing of land, or the enclosed land itself, and of a constriction in medicine.[7] English inclusion comes from it around 1600, in the sense “the act of making a part of”.[8]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the confinement of Bibulus.[2][5][9]
  • c. 485–c. 580 AD – Cassiodorus uses it of a siege.[2][9]
  • 540–604 AD – Gregory the Great uses it of a monk's reclusion.[2][9]
  • 1305 – A Chester cartulary uses it of enclosing heathland.[7]
  • c. 1600 – English borrows inclusion.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. confinement, imprisonment.[4][5][1]
  2. (rhetoric) The repeating of a word at the beginning and end of a sentence.[5][2]
  3. (Late Latin) A siege, blockade.[2][3]
  4. (Medieval Latin) The life of a recluse; a recluse's cell; monastic enclosure.[3][6]
  5. (Medieval Latin) The enclosure of land; enclosed land.[7][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  4. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  7. ^ a b c d Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de