inserto

Forms

īnsertō (present infinitive īnsertāre); first conjugation, no perfect or supine stems^[1]

Etymology

It is a frequentative verb from Latin īnserō² (“to insert, introduce”) + -tō,^[2][1][3] formed like exsertō.^[3] Wölfflin argued that Virgil coined it to suit the metre.^[3]

The TLL records Romance outcomes meaning “to graft”: Spanish enjertar, Portuguese enxertar and Old Occitan ensertar.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Virgil,^[4][5] where the narrator tells how he was fitting his left arm into his shield: clipeoque sinistram insertabam aptans (Aeneid 2.672).^[4][3] An ancient commentator on the passage, in the expanded Servius, says the verb shows hesitation.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.^[4] It was used mostly of putting a hand or arm into something: Seneca has a lion-tamer put his hand in a lion's mouth, and Statius has hands thrust into chains.^[3][4] Petronius has axes thrust into joints,^[4] Silius Italicus an oak thrusting its head into the clouds,^[3] and Prudentius a priest's knife and a doctor's scalpel.^[3] Caelius Aurelianus used it reflexively, of wine that works its way into every part of the body.^[3] Ancient glossaries explain insertabam as inserēbam.^[3]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of fitting an arm into a shield.^[4][3][5]
• 4 BC–AD 65 – Seneca uses it of a hand put into a lion's mouth.^[3][5]
• before 66 AD – Petronius uses it of axes driven into joints.^[4][5]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it of hands thrust into chains.^[4][3][5]
• 5th century AD – Caelius Aurelianus uses it reflexively of wine spreading through the body.^[3][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To thrust in, put in, insert, introduce.^[2][4][1]
2. (reflexive) To work one's way into, penetrate.^[3]

Word family

• insertatio

Related words

• exsertō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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 h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de