merito

Forms

meritō (superlative meritissimō)^[2][1] Old inscriptions have meritod, meretod and mereto.^[2]

Etymology

It is an adverbial ablative of meritum (“desert, merit”), the neuter of meritus, the participle of mereō (“to earn, deserve”).^[2][1] Early inscriptions spell it ⟨meritod⟩, ⟨meretod⟩ and ⟨mereto⟩, with the old ablative ending ⟨-d⟩;^[2][1] Faliscan has the same form.^[2][1] De Vaan traces ⟨mereō⟩ to Proto-Italic *merē- (“to earn”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mr-eh₁-, related to Ancient Greek μείρομαι (meíromai, “to receive one's share”) and μέρος (méros, “part, share”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Captivi: Iovī … agō grātiās meritō magnās, “I give Jupiter great thanks, as he deserves”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means as one deserves, deservedly, and then with good reason or as a natural consequence (Lucretius: clouds rightly turn red, since they take in much of the sun's light).^[2] The superlative meritissimō is “most deservedly”.^[2][1] In dedications it is part of the votive formula libēns meritō, “willingly and deservedly”, abbreviated ⟨L·M⟩.^[1] Church Latin glosses it “deservedly, rightly, justly”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: thanks given deservedly.^[2][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius in the sense “with good reason”.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adverb

1. deservedly, as one deserves, justly.^[2][1][4]
2. With good reason, rightly, as a natural consequence.^[2][1]

Related words

• meritum
• mereō

Usage notes

A rare verb meritō, meritāre, the frequentative of mereō, means to earn money regularly or to draw pay as a soldier: Cicero has a bailiff who had earned ten thousand sesterces, and Pliny says the actor Roscius earned half a million a year.^[2][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
5. ^ a b 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