insidiator

Forms

īnsidiātor m (genitive īnsidiātōris); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin īnsidior (“to lie in wait”) + -tor.^[2][1][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and the TLL date it from the Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero.^[4][3] Cicero says there is no guard at the gates and no one lying in wait on the road.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is one who lies in wait to attack or rob, a waylayer;^[2][5] Hirtius uses it in the military sense of soldiers in ambush.^[2][5] It is also a plotter or deceiver: Horace has an īnsidiātor whose hook a crafty man may escape by nibbling it off.^[2] The TLL finds it in verse only in single passages of Horace's satires, Ausonius, Prudentius and Claudian.^[3] Church Latin uses it of a plotter, spy or traitor,^[6] and Medieval Latin of the Devil.^[7]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium.^[4][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a waylayer.^[2]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of a plotter.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. One who lies in wait, a waylayer, lurker.^[2][5][1]
2. (military) A soldier lying in ambush.^[2][5]
3. A plotter, deceiver; a spy, traitor.^[2][1][6]
4. (Medieval Latin) The Devil.^[7]

Related words

• īnsidiae

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d 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 Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill