innitor

Forms

innītor (present infinitive innītī, perfect active innīxus sum or innīsus sum); third conjugation, deponent^[1] The perfect participle is usually innīxus;^[2][3] innīsus is found in Tacitus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“on”) + nītor (“to lean, strive”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan reconstructs nītor as Proto-Italic *kniχw-et- and, with Walde–Hofmann and Pokorny, connects it with cōnīveō (“to be tightly closed”); he notes that the verb's first meaning could have been either to lean on or to exert pressure.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest example in the OLD is in Caesar's Gallic War, of soldiers who fought on leaning on their shields.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to lean on something for support, usually with the dative: Ovid has a man leaning on his spear, and Propertius one resting on his right shoulder.^[2][6] The participle in the phrase innīxus genū, “the kneeler”, was a name of the constellation Hercules.^[2] Things rest on supports too, as a house on Phrygian columns, and an elephant presses its weight on a man with its knee in the Bellum Africum.^[2] Figuratively it is to depend or rely on, as when Livy writes that the fortune of the enemy rests on one man.^[2] Church Latin uses it chiefly for relying on God.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 50 BC – Caesar of soldiers leaning on their shields.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of fortune resting on one man.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus has the participle innīsus.^[2][3][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lean on something for support; to rest or support oneself on part of the body.^[2][6][1]
2. Of things, to be supported by, rest on.^[2][1]
3. To put one's weight on, press.^[2]
4. To depend or rely on.^[2][7]

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 k l m n o 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 d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson