lanio

Forms

laniō (present infinitive laniāre, perfect active laniāvī, supine laniātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

The OLD thinks it probably of Etruscan origin, comparing lanista (“trainer of gladiators”).^[2] The grammarian Eutyches derived it from lanius (“butcher”), which the TLL accepts,^[3] and Wiktionary also takes it as from Latin lanius (“butcher”).^[1] Lewis & Short call it of doubtful origin and compare lacer (“torn”) and Ancient Greek δάκνω (dáknō, “to bite”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first example in the OLD is in the historian Claudius Quadrigarius, of someone tearing at a hand with the nails;^[2] Cicero uses it of a man torn to pieces.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

It means to wound savagely, tear or mutilate flesh, as Cicero's bodies mangled by wild beasts, and to tear the hair, cheeks or clothes in grief, as in Ovid's women tearing their hair.^[2][4] Suetonius uses it of the butcher cutting up meat, and Sallust of shattered wrecks rising from the sea.^[2] Figuratively it is to criticise savagely, as in Ovid's complaint that slanderous tongues tore his poems to pieces, and Seneca uses it of cares that tear the heart.^[2][5] Church Latin glosses it “mangle”.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a man torn to pieces and of bodies mangled by beasts.^[4][5][7]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust of shattered wrecks.^[2][7]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of hair torn in grief and of poems pulled to pieces.^[2][7]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius of a butcher cutting up meat.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tear to pieces, mangle, lacerate; to tear the hair or clothes in grief; to cut up meat.^[2][4][1]
2. To damage severely, break up.^[2]
3. To criticise savagely, pull to pieces.^[2][5]

Word family

• laniōnius
• dēlaniō
• dīlaniō
• laniamentum
• laniatio
• laniator
• laniatorium
• laniātus

Related words

• lanius
• lanista

Usage notes

A separate rare noun laniō, -ōnis “butcher” is made from lanius;^[2] it occurs in Petronius and the Digest, and Sedulius applies it to Herod as an executioner.^[5] Medieval Latin has it for both butcher and executioner.^[8] Döderlein distinguishes lacerāre, to tear by mere force, from laniāre, to cut as with an instrument, among which teeth and claws may be counted.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ 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
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper