lento

Forms

lentō (present infinitive lentāre, perfect active lentāvī, supine lentātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin lentus (“pliant, flexible; slow”) + -ō, a denominative verb.^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces lentus to Proto-Italic *lento- (“soft”) and Proto-Indo-European *lent-o- (“soft, smooth, pliant”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Virgil uses it in the Aeneid of an oar that must be bent in the Sicilian sea (Trinacria lentandus remus in unda).^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is to bend something under strain, an oar in Virgil, a bow in Statius.^[2][6][7] From lentus “slow” Silius Italicus drew the sense of prolonging, drawing out a war,^[2][5] and Sidonius Apollinaris that of moderating.^[5]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of bending an oar in the Aeneid.^[2][8]
• 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus uses it of drawing out a war.^[2][8]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it of drawing a bow.^[6][7][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bend under strain, to make flexible; to draw (a bow), ply (an oar).^[2][6]
2. To prolong, draw out.^[2][5]
3. To moderate.^[5]

Related words

• lentus

Usage notes

Lento, genitive Lentonis, was also a Roman cognomen, “sluggard”, made from the same adjective.^[6][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de