inhio
Pronunciation
Forms
inhiō (present infinitive inhiāre, perfect active inhiāvī, supine inhiātum); first conjugation[1]
Etymology
It is from Latin in- + hiō (“to gape”).[2][1][3] De Vaan traces hiō to Proto-Italic *χi-ā- and Proto-Indo-European *ǵhh1i-eh2- (“to gape, be wide open”), comparing Lithuanian žióti (“to open one's mouth”).[4]
Earliest recorded meaning
Plautus has it in the Trinummus of a wolf that grew hungrier and gaped more eagerly, and in the Aulularia of gaping at gold to devour it.[2]
Semantic evolution
It is to open the mouth, especially for food, and so to gape at something in astonishment: Porcius Licinus has Terence hang open-mouthed on the divine voice of Africanus, and Virgil an open-mouthed Cerberus and people gaping with astonished minds.[2][5] It is also to gaze intently at or pore over, as Scylla gazing on Minos in the Ciris.[2] From the start it means to be greedy for, to covet.[2] Manuscripts often spell it iniō.[3] Church Latin glosses it long for, gape after.[6]
Timeline
- c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a gaping wolf and of coveting gold.[2]
- 70–19 BC – Virgil of gaping Cerberus.[5]
Meanings
Verb
- To open the mouth wide, gape; to gape in astonishment.[2][5][1]
- To gaze at intently, pore over.[2][1]
- To long for, covet.[2][1][6]
Word family
- inhiātiō
- inhianter
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
- ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson