inunguo

Forms

inunguō (present infinitive inunguere, perfect active inūnxī, supine inūnctum); third conjugation^[1] The OLD also records the spelling inungō,^[2] and the TLL says the spellings with and without ⟨u⟩ occur side by side in the manuscripts.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin in-¹ + unguō.^[2][3] unguō (“to anoint”) goes back to Proto-Italic *ongw-e- (“to anoint”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₃engʷ-e/o-.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato's De agri cultura has it of anointing the eyes of those whose sight is dim.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it is mostly a medical word: to anoint (with medicaments) and to rub in an ointment, as in Celsus and Pliny the Elder.^[2][5] Horace has it of a bleary-eyed man who should not refuse to be anointed, and Varro and others of smearing in general; the OLD also notes its use for dressing food.^[2][5] Lewis & Short call it poetic and post-Augustan in prose.^[5] Late medical writers such as Theodorus Priscianus and Marcellus Empiricus use it often.^[3]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of anointing the eyes.^[2][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses the passive inungui of a bleary-eyed man.^[5][6]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it of rubbing in medicaments.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To anoint (with medicaments); to cover (food) with a dressing.^[2][5]
2. To rub in (an ointment).^[2]

Word family

• inunctiō
• perinungō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de