lectito

Forms

lēctitō (present infinitive lēctitāre, perfect active lēctitāvī, supine lēctitātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin legō² (“to gather, read”) + -itō.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces legō² to Proto-Italic *leg-e- and Proto-Indo-European *leǵ-e/o- (“to collect”).^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek λέγω (légō, “to collect, count; speak”) and Albanian mbledh (“to collect”).^[4] Gellius and Charisius cite it among frequentative verbs.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Cicero,^[2] in the Brutus: someone is said to have read Plato eagerly, lectitavisse Platonem studiose.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In classical Latin it is to read repeatedly or eagerly, to peruse:^[2][5] Cicero writes to a friend that he sees he has been reading the books of Pyrrhus.^[5] The sense to gather repeatedly is post-classical:^[5] Valerius Maximus has shells and pebbles collected on the shore, and Arnobius flowers.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of reading Plato and the books of Pyrrhus.^[2][5][6]
• 297–310 AD – Arnobius, of gathering flowers.^[5][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To read often or eagerly, to peruse.^[2][5][1]
2. To gather or collect often or eagerly.^[2][5][1]

Related words

• lēctiō
• lēctor
• legō²

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de