intercessio

Forms

intercessiō f (genitive intercessiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin intercēdō (“to come between, intervene”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3] De Vaan lists it under cēdō “to go, give way”, which he traces, after Lubotsky, to Proto-Italic *kesd-e/o- (“to go away, avoid”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱiesdʰ- (“to drive away; go away”), comparing Sanskrit सेधति (sedhati, “to drive, chase away”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Sisenna,^[4] in whom a speaker says that neither his death nor his veto seems able to check the mad audacity of his opponents.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is the veto of a magistrate.^[2] It is also a standing surety, a guarantee: Cicero writes to Atticus that his surety is and was ready, and speaks of promises of money in the coalitions of candidates.^[2][5] Gellius has money shown to have been paid by the intervention of witnesses.^[2] In medieval Latin, beside the classical sense of bail, it is intercession in the religious sense and intervention in general.^[6] Church Latin glosses it intercession.^[7] English intercession (c. 1500), especially intercessory prayer, is from Latin.^[8]

Timeline

• 120–67 BC – Sisenna of a veto.^[2][4][9]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of standing surety.^[2][9]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius of witnesses.^[2][9]
• c. 1500 – English intercession.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (politics) The veto of a magistrate.^[2][1]
2. A standing surety, guarantee.^[2][5][6]
3. An intervention, mediation.^[2][5][1]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Intercession.^[6][7][1]

Related words

• intercēdō
• English intercession

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de