macte

Forms

macte (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

It is a frozen vocative, from Latin mactus (“honoured, blessed”), treated as indeclinable.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces the adjective to Proto-Italic *makto- (“honoured, blessed”).^[4] For its further origin he finds slightly more attractive Driessen's suggestion of a root Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱ- (“to make long”), also seen in macer (“thin”), so that “honoured” would first have meant “made bigger”; a link with magnus (“big”) is less likely, since by Lachmann's law one would expect a long vowel in the adjective.^[4]

Risch explained the formula ⟨macte estō⟩ as a blend of ⟨mactus estō⟩ with another formula, and the verb mactō as “to pronounce the macte formula”.^[4] Szemerényi took the word for the ablative of an i-stem noun meaning “power”, a view de Vaan calls far-fetched.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato, in his work on agriculture, has it in prayers: Iuppiter dapalis, macte istace dape pollucenda esto, “Jupiter of the feast, be honoured by this offering of food”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In early drama it is said to people in the formula macte virtute (esto), “be blessed for your courage”, “well done”, in Pacuvius, Accius and Turpilius.^[2] Cicero uses it ironically in a letter (macte virtute! to a friend who has leisure to read the Orator), Horace quotes a saying of Cato with it, and Livy and Virgil keep the formula: macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra.^[2]

From Pliny the Elder and Statius on it is also used with other ablatives, with a genitive or rarely an accusative, meaning “hurrah for”, and on its own as “bravo”.^[2] With a plural subject the verb is plural (macte … estote),^[2] and Lewis and Short also give a plural macti.^[6] Ecclesiastical Latin keeps the sense “bravo, well done”.^[7]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it in prayers to gods.^[2][5]
• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius has macte esto virtute.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in his letters, once ironically and once on its own as “bravo”.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil has macte nova virtute, puer.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it with other ablatives.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (addressed to gods, macte esto with the ablative) Be honoured (with).^[2][1]
2. (addressed to people, macte virtute (esto)) Be blessed for your courage; well done.^[2][1]
3. (with the ablative, genitive or accusative) Blessings on, hurrah for.^[2]
4. (on its own) Bravo, well done.^[2][7]

Related words

• mactus
• mactō

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 i j k l m n o 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 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson