insuo

Forms

īnsuō (present infinitive īnsuere, perfect active īnsuī, supine īnsūtum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + suō (“to sew”).^[2][1][3][4] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *s(j)ūje/o- and Proto-Indo-European *siuH-ie/o- (“to sew”).^[5]

Cognate with Lithuanian siū́ti and Latvian šũt, “to sew”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus,^[3] in the phrase iubē hunc in culleō īnsuī, “have him sewn into a sack”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Its main sense was to sew someone or something up inside something, especially in the Roman punishment of parricides, who were sewn into a sack: Cicero has īnsuī in culleum, and Seneca the Elder, Quintilian and Suetonius use it the same way.^[2][7][8] Ovid uses it of an infant sewn into his father's thigh and of being sewn into the hide of a bullock.^[2][6]

It also meant to sew one thing onto another: Varro has a soft piece of skin sewn in, Virgil the boxing gloves stiff with lead sewn into them, Columella a cord with coloured rags sewn on.^[2][9] Ovid's īnsūtum vestibus aurum is gold embroidered on clothes.^[7][8] Medieval writers used it of sewing sacred ashes or bones into cushions and bags, and of sewing on or binding.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of sewing a man into a sack.^[2][11]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the punishment of parricides.^[2][11]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of lead sewn into boxing gloves.^[2][11]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of gold embroidered on clothing.^[7][11]
• c. 830 – Einhard has sacred ashes sewn into new silk cushions.^[10][11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sew up in, sew into.^[2][7]
2. To sew up (a parricide) in a sack, as a punishment.^[2][8]
3. To attach by sewing, sew on; to embroider.^[2][8]

Word family

• insūtus

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 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. ^ 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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
10. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
11. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de