latrocinor

Forms

latrōcinor (present infinitive latrōcinārī, perfect active latrōcinātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin latrō² (“mercenary; robber”) + -cinor.^[1][2] The OLD explains it as made from latrōcinium (“military service for pay; brigandage”) in the same way.^[3] The origin of that noun for “mercenary” is disputed: it is often compared with Ancient Greek λάτρις (látris, “hired servant”) and traced to an Indo-European root, but Beekes takes it as a borrowing from an unattested *λάτρων (*látrōn).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL first records it in Plautus,^[2] in the old sense of serving as a hired soldier: in the Miles Gloriosus a soldier's slave is asked whether he thinks he may do as he likes because he and his fellows serve for pay.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Its early sense, “to serve as a mercenary”, belongs to Plautus, who also has a man going off to serve in Asia or Cilicia and another who served King Demetrius for ten years;^[3][4] in the Poenulus he uses it jokingly of things that “rob” a man because they want ready cash.^[2] Lewis & Short call this sense ante-classical.^[4]

From Cicero on it means “to practise brigandage”: Catiline would rather be killed as a brigand than live as an exile, and the Cretans and Aetolians, Cicero says, think robbery honourable;^[3][4] he also uses it of piracy, setting seafaring peoples who sailed for trade beside those who sailed to plunder.^[4][5] Celsus applies it to a doctor who dissects a body, and Pliny the Elder to the stingray, which lies in ambush and strikes passing fish with its spine.^[3][4][6]

It is also used transitively, of harrying a stretch of land or sea: Seneca the Elder speaks of pirates who plunder lands and seas alike, and Florus has it of a gulf.^[3][7] Eutropius construes it with a dative, of capturing Roman ships.^[6] An active form is found in the Historia Augusta, and Augustine has the adverb latrōcinanter, “like a robber”.^[6][4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of serving as a hired soldier.^[3][2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of brigandage and piracy.^[3][4][8]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus applies it to a doctor dissecting a body.^[3][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a predatory fish.^[3][8]
• c. 120 AD – Florus uses it transitively, of harrying a gulf.^[3][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To serve as a mercenary soldier.^[3][4]
2. To practise brigandage or piracy, to rob.^[3][4]
3. (of predatory animals) To lie in wait for prey.^[3][4]
4. (transitive) To harry, plunder (a stretch of land or sea).^[3][6]

Related words

• latrō²
• latrōcinium

Usage notes

The active latrōcinō occurs once, in the Historia Augusta.^[6][5][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de