insterno

Forms

īnsternō (present infinitive īnsternere, perfect active īnstrāvī, supine īnstrātum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + sternō (“to spread, strew”).^[2][3][4] De Vaan traces the simple verb to Proto-Italic *sterna- and Proto-Indo-European *st(e)r-n-h₃- (“to spread, strew”); it is cognate with Old Irish sernaid (“to spread, build”), Sanskrit स्तृणाति (str̥ṇā́ti, “to spread out, extend, strew”) and Ancient Greek στόρνυμι (stórnumi, “to extend, strew out”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Cato on,^[3] and de Vaan lists the noun īnstrātum “saddle-cloth” in Cato.^[5] Among the OLD's quotations the earliest are Varro, who says that whatever was spread on (insternēbant) was called strāgulum, and Lucretius, who has beds strewn with leaves (īnstrāta cubīlia fronde).^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Virgil has horses covered with purple (īnstrātōs ostrō alipedēs) and high gangways laid on a tower, and Horace says that Aeschylus laid a stage on modest beams.^[2][6] Livy uses it of horses saddled and bridled, Suetonius of a couch modestly covered, and Ulpian of Babylonian cloths spread on horses.^[2] Statius uses it of laying a body on a river bank, and of casting oneself into fire.^[2][6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it.^[3][7]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of spreading on a cover.^[2][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of beds strewn with leaves.^[2][6][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of horses covered with purple.^[2][6][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of laying a stage.^[2][6][7]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it of casting oneself into fire.^[6][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spread or lay on, lay as a covering.^[2][6][4]
2. To lay (a floor, deck, stage).^[2][6]
3. To cover, bestrew (with); without an ablative, to cover with a rug or cloth, to saddle (horses).^[2][6]
4. To throw (oneself) into (fire).^[6]

Word family

• instrātum
• instrātus
• superinsternō

Related words

• sternō
• substernō
• strāgulum

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
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 f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de