Etymologically
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insitio

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Forms

īnsitiō f (genitive īnsitiōnis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin īnserō1 (“to graft”) + -tiō.[2][3][1] De Vaan lists the verb, “to plant, graft on”, under serō1 (“to sow”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *si-se/o- and Proto-Indo-European *si-sh1-e/o- (“to sow”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato has it first, in his book on farming: vitis insitio una est per ver, there is one time for grafting the vine, in spring.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is the grafting of trees.[2][6] Varro writes of people who moved fig grafting from spring to summer, Cicero says that not only planting but grafting gives pleasure, and Lucretius that nature herself was the source of sowing and grafting.[2] Columella and Pliny the Elder use it in their rules for vines and trees.[2] It also came to mean the place of grafting and the grafted plant itself, both in Columella,[2][6] and Ovid uses it for the season of grafting.[6] Servius explains that grafting is of two kinds.[3]

Timeline

  • 234–149 BC – Cato, of grafting the vine in spring.[2][5]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro, of grafting figs.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the pleasure of grafting.[2][6][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of the season of grafting.[2][6][5]
  • 1st century AD – Columella, of the graft and the place of grafting.[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. grafting (of trees and vines).[2][6][1]
  2. The place of grafting.[2]
  3. A grafted plant, a graft.[2][6][1]
  4. The time of grafting.[6]

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 k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b 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 e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press