inquisitor

Forms

inquīsītor m (genitive inquīsītōris, feminine inquīsītrix); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin inquīrō (“to search for, inquire into”) + -tor, an agent noun formed on the participle stem ⟨inquīsīt-⟩.^[2][1][3] The verb is a compound of in- and quaerō (“to seek”).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Cicero,^[4][3] who in the first speech against Verres uses it of the official charged with gathering evidence for a prosecution, and in the Academica of a person who searches into the nature of things.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The TLL counts only two instances in Cicero and finds it regularly from Seneca and Pliny the Elder on; in verse it occurs only once, in Juvenal.^[3] Besides the investigator of a lawsuit, who collected witnesses and evidence for the accuser,^[5][2] it named a researcher into nature or truth, as in Seneca's Naturales quaestiones,^[5][6] a hunting dog that tracks game, in Pliny the Elder,^[2][7] a spy or tracker sent after a suspect, in Suetonius,^[7][5] and, in Juvenal, people who search the very seaweed on the shore.^[5][2]

Medieval writers kept the sense “searcher, finder”: Bede calls Pliny a most skilful investigator of nature.^[8] It also named a person who held an inquest or official inquiry,^[8] and in Ecclesiastical Latin an officer of the Inquisition.^[9] English took it over around 1400 for an inspector, and used it from the 1540s for the officers of the Inquisition.^[10]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a collector of evidence for a prosecution and of an inquirer into nature.^[5][6][4]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of an investigator of natural phenomena.^[5][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a dog that tracks game.^[2][4]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal speaks of inspectors who search even the seaweed.^[2][4]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of men sent to hunt down a suspect.^[7][4]
• c. 1400 – Borrowed into English for an inspector or inquirer.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who searches out someone or something, a tracker or spy; of a dog, one that tracks game.^[2][7][5]
2. An investigator or researcher (into nature, truth and the like).^[2][5]
3. (law) A person who gathers witnesses and evidence for a prosecution.^[2][5]
4. A person who searches or inspects goods.^[2]
5. (Medieval Latin) A person who holds an inquest or official inquiry.^[8]
6. (Ecclesiastical Latin) An officer of the Inquisition, an inquisitor.^[9]

Related words

• English inquisitor

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 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. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com