intimido

Forms

intimidō (present infinitive intimidāre, perfect active intimidāvī, supine intimidātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin in- + timidus (“fearful”).^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Latin translation of the Life of Antony, where demons try to frighten the hermit with crowds and apparitions.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In Late Latin it meant to strike someone with fear, said above all of demons and their phantoms, and in the Passion of Tarachus of a persecutor trying to frighten a servant of God.^[2] A lapidary of Damigeron uses it in a narrower sense, of a woman who casts the evil eye on infants.^[2]

Medieval Latin kept the verb in the sense “to frighten, intimidate”;^[1][5] Du Cange quotes it from the Acts of Saint Mammarius.^[5] English took intimidate from its Medieval Latin past participle in the 1640s.^[3]

Timeline

• 360 AD – The Latin Life of Antony uses it of demons frightening the hermit.^[2][4]
• 1640s – English forms intimidate from the past participle.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (Late Latin, Medieval Latin) To frighten, terrify, intimidate.^[2][1][5]
2. (Late Latin) To bewitch with the evil eye.^[2]

Related words

• timidus
• English intimidate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre