insilio

Forms

īnsiliō (present infinitive īnsilīre, perfect active īnsiluī or īnsilīvī or īnsiliī, supine īnsultum); fourth conjugation, no passive^[1] Plautus has the spelling insuliō.^[2][3] Besides the perfect in -uī, forms in -īvī and -iī occur, and Quadrigarius has the imperfect insilibat.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + saliō¹ (“to leap, jump”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces saliō¹ to Proto-Italic *sal-je- (“to jump”) and Proto-Indo-European *sh2l-ie/o-, but regards the reconstruction of the root as uncertain.^[5] Cognate with Ancient Greek ἅλλομαι (hállomai, “to jump”) and Old Irish saltraid (“to trample”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Plautus on,^[3] whose Rudens has in scapham insiluimus, “we jumped into the skiff”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It means to leap into or onto something, with in and the accusative, with the plain accusative or the dative, or absolutely:^[2][4] Lucilius has someone leap on a man's head, Caesar soldiers leaping onto the enemy's phalanxes, Livy a man leaping onto his horse, and Horace a leap into Etna.^[2] Pliny the Elder says a vine shoot mounts the trellis, and Silius Italicus uses it of the sea.^[2] Plautus jokes about leaping into the worst of torments, which Lewis and Short take as being crucified.^[2][4]

From the sense of leaping on to attack, Apuleius has dogs springing at a man from all sides, and Statius has a goddess fall upon Thebes.^[2] The frequentative īnsultō grew from it.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of jumping into a skiff.^[2][6]
• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius uses it of leaping on a man's head.^[2][6]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of soldiers leaping onto the phalanxes.^[2][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a vine shoot climbing.^[2][6]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of dogs attacking.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To leap into or onto, jump on; to mount.^[2][4]
2. To spring at, leap on (to attack).^[2][4]

Word family

• īnsultō
• insultūra
• īnsultus

Related words

• dēsiliō
• exsiliō
• saltus¹

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 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. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de