lancino

Forms

lancinō (present infinitive lancināre, perfect active lancināvī, supine lancinātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

The OLD and the TLL compare lacer (“torn”) and lacinia (“flap of a garment”).^[2][3] De Vaan's explanation is that it is from Proto-Italic *lank- (“to tear”), a present stem from Proto-Indo-European *lh₂-n-k- (“to tear”), blended with a nasal stem *lak-e/on-.^[4] Such stems sometimes gave verbs in ⟨-ināre⟩, and in his view lacinia must come from the same stem.^[4]

Cognate with Ancient Greek λακίς (lakís, “rent; tatters”) and λακίζω (lakízō, “to tear”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Catullus has it first,^[4][3] figuratively, of a squandered inheritance: paterna prīma lancināta sunt bona, “first his father's property was torn to pieces”.^[3][5][6]

Semantic evolution

The TLL finds it from Catullus on, then in the elder Seneca, Celsus, and Seneca's tragedies and prose.^[3] Seneca uses it of men torn apart in anger, Pliny the Elder of animals mangling with their bite, and also of the many bays that cut into the coast of the Peloponnese.^[7][5] Seneca also warns against splitting life into fragments, lancināre it.^[7][5] Tertullian makes a pun on it, of infants who could spear before they could chew.^[5]

Glossaries explain it as tearing again and again, and the TLL notes that it is kept apart from laniō and lacerō, with which manuscripts often confuse it.^[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means to mangle.^[8] English lancinate was formed from its past participle around 1600.^[9]

Timeline

• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it of squandered property.^[3][10]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of tearing people apart and of splitting up life.^[7][5][10]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a bite and of an indented coast.^[7][10]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian puns on it.^[5][10]
• c. 1600 – English forms lancinate from its past participle.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tear to pieces, mangle, lacerate.^[2][7]
2. (figurative) To squander (property); to break up, fritter away (one's life).^[7][5]
3. Of bays, to cut into, indent (a coast).^[7]

Word family

• lancinātiō
• lancinator

Related words

• lacer
• lacinia
• laniō
• lacerō
• English lancinate

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d 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 f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de