infulcio

Forms

infulciō (present infinitive infulcīre, perfect active infulsī, supine infultum); fourth conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“in”) + fulciō (“to prop up”).^[2][3][4] De Vaan calls the etymology of the simple verb unclear: it is often connected with Ancient Greek φάλκης (phálkēs, “rib of a ship”), φάλαγξ (phálanx, “beam”) and Old High German balko (“beam”), but he finds the link of meaning with a root for swelling unclear and the suffixes mismatched.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Seneca the philosopher on;^[3] in one letter he asks what he has slipped into it, quid huic epistulae īnfulserim.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Literally it meant to push or cram something in: Suetonius tells of food crammed into a mouth forced open.^[8][7][6] More often it was used figuratively, of putting something in or foisting it in: Seneca uses it of adding something to a letter and of a word stuck in everywhere,^[8][7] and the Historia Augusta of a man who added the name Severus to his own.^[8][7]

It lives on in Italian infulcire, Neapolitan nfrucere and Sicilian nfurgiri.^[1][3]

Timeline

• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of inserting something in a letter.^[6][9]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of cramming food into a mouth.^[8][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To push or cram in.^[2][8][7]
2. (figurative) To put in, insert, foist in.^[2][8][10]

Related words

• fulciō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
10. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.