incoquo

Forms

incoquō (present infinitive incoquere, perfect active incoxī, supine incoctum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + coquō (“to cook”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces coquō to Proto-Italic *kʷekʷe/o- (“to cook”) and Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ-e/o- (“to cook”), with the /o/ of the first syllable perhaps taken from the noun coquus (“cook”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Virgil, Horace and Ovid on.^[3] In the Georgics Virgil tells the beekeeper to boil the roots of a plant in fragrant wine, odōrātō rādīcēs incoque Bacchō.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is used of boiling or stewing something in a liquid, and of adding an ingredient or colour by boiling: Horace boasts that he was the first to show how to cook bitter elecampane into a dish.^[2] Celsus and Pliny the Elder use it of boiling down a decoction,^[2] and Pliny of dishonest craftsmen plating objects with molten metal.^[2] By likeness it was used of the sun or fire baking and scorching, as in Ovid and Lucan.^[2] Persius uses it figuratively of a heart steeped in virtue, incoctum generōsō pectus honestō.^[2]

The TLL notes that Cicero and Caesar do not use it, while medical writers such as Celsus, Scribonius Largus and Pliny use it often.^[3][5] Virgil and Silius Italicus use it of dyeing, as in vellera Tyriōs incocta rubōrēs, fleeces steeped in Tyrian red, and Lactantius has it figuratively, of people imbued with justice.^[6]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of boiling roots in wine.^[2][3]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of cooking an ingredient into a dish.^[2]
• 34–62 AD – Persius uses it of a heart steeped in virtue.^[2]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of plating with molten metal.^[2]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius uses it of people imbued with justice.^[6][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To boil or stew in a liquid.^[2][5]
2. (figurative) To steep, imbue (with a quality or feeling).^[2]
3. To add (an ingredient, flavour or colour) by boiling.^[2]
4. To coat with molten metal, to plate.^[2]
5. To boil down, make a decoction of.^[2]
6. Of the sun or fire, to bake, scorch.^[2]
7. To dye.^[1][6]

Word family

• incoctio

Related words

• coquō
• dēcoquō
• excoquō

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 j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de