iugulo

Forms

iugulō (present infinitive iugulāre, perfect active iugulāvī, supine iugulātum); first conjugation^[1] It is also spelled jugulō.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is formed from iugulum (“collarbone, throat”) with the verb suffix -ō, as the grammarians Charisius and Dositheus already said.^[3][4][1] De Vaan explains ⟨iugulum⟩ as probably a “small yoke”, a connecting part, from iugum (“yoke”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *(H)iugo- (“yoke”), of the family of iungō (“to join”).^[5] Cognate with Hittite iuka- (“yoke, pair”) and Ancient Greek ζεύγνυμι (zeúgnumi, “to yoke”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Plautus and Terence on;^[4] in Plautus' Stichus a parasite jokes that he will cut his own throat that day, “with hunger”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is to kill by cutting the throat, especially beaten gladiators and sacrificial victims, as Cicero's pig whose squeal is not heard when it is killed, and in general to shed blood or slaughter.^[3][2] Celsus says a quartan fever kills no one.^[3] Figuratively it is to ruin or destroy a person or a cause, as Cicero's Verres who must be undone by his own confession.^[3][2]

Church Latin glosses it “cut the throat, slay”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus jokes of cutting his throat with hunger.^[3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of slaughter and of ruining by confession.^[3][7]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus of a fatal fever.^[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut the throat of, slay, kill; to slaughter.^[3][2][1][6]
2. (of diseases) To prove fatal to.^[3]
3. (figurative) To ruin, destroy.^[3][2]

Word family

• iugulātiō
• iugulator

Related words

• iugulum
• iugum
• iungō
• interficiō

Usage notes

Döderlein gives interficere and perimere as the most general words for putting to death, by any means and for any motive.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper