intercurro

Forms

intercurrō (present infinitive intercurrere, perfect active intercurrī or intercucurrī, supine intercursum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin inter- (“between”) + currō (“to run”).^[2][1][3] Currō goes back to Proto-Italic *korse/o- (“to run”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest citations are in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, of a kind of narrative that sometimes occurs in a speech, and in Lucretius, of a difference in shape that occurs between grains of the same kind.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “occur in between, intervene” is the one in the earliest citations; later writers used it of veins in stones and of thorns among leaves.^[2] The literal sense of running between places appears in Livy, who has a commander hasten to Veii in the meantime to encourage his troops,^[2][5] and Cicero used it of envoys sent to mediate.^[2] Columella and Pliny the Elder used it of things that extend between others, such as reeds in a lattice or a strait.^[2][5] The TLL notes that it is sometimes confused with incurro in manuscripts.^[3]

Ecclesiastical Latin used it to mean to intervene, or to run or go between.^[6]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of differences in shape occurring between grains.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of envoys sent to mediate.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of hastening somewhere in the meantime.^[2][7]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of reeds running between the bars of a lattice.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To run or hasten from one place to another in the meantime; to act as intermediary, mediate.^[2][5]
2. To extend between.^[2]
3. To occur in the course of something, be mingled in, intervene.^[2][5][6]

Word family

• intercursus

Usage notes

Lucretius splits the verb by tmesis as inter plaga currere.^[5][3]

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 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. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de