ingemo

Forms

ingemō (present infinitive ingemere, perfect active ingemuī, supine ingemitum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“at, over”) + gemō (“to groan”).^[2][3][1] The origin of gemō is disputed: most scholars connect it with Ancient Greek γέμω (gémō, “to be full”), but de Vaan finds that semantically hard and follows Vine's link with Ancient Greek γέγωνα (gégōna, “to shout”), from a root Proto-Indo-European *Gen(H)- (“to call”), with /m/ for /n/ after semantically related words.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL dates it from Lucretius, Virgil, Horace and Ovid, and in prose later.^[3] Virgil's fifth Eclogue uses it of lamenting a death.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It means to utter a cry of pain or anguish, to groan or moan, and of things to creak, as Valerius Flaccus' whole forest groaning under the north wind's wings.^[2] Transitively it is to groan over or lament, as Statius' man lamenting his young wife's years.^[2][5] The OLD assigns all perfect forms to ingemīscō.^[2] In Church Latin it is glossed repent.^[6]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it.^[3][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of lamenting a death.^[5][7]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius of lamenting a wife's years.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To groan, moan; of things, to creak.^[2][5][1]
2. Transitively, to groan over, lament, bewail.^[2][5][1]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To repent.^[6]

Word family

• ingemēscō

Related words

• gemō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de