metastasis

Forms

metastasis f (genitive metastasis, accusative metastasin); third declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μετάστασις (metástasis, “removal, banishment”),^[3][2] from μεθιστάναι (methístēmi, “to remove, change”), made of μετά (metá) and ἱστάναι (hístēmi, “to set, place”).^[3][4] Latin writers also use the Greek form.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Quintilian (c. 35–95/96 AD)^[3] is the first to use it, as the new name of the translatio, the shifting of a charge onto someone else, which Hermagoras had counted as a kind of juridical issue.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It remained a term of rhetoric.^[2][1] Besides the shifting of blame onto another, which Aquila Romanus and Martianus Capella list among the figures,^[2] Quintilian uses it for imagining things in the future or the past,^[2] and the De schematis lexeos ascribed to Julius Rufinianus for a transition, the same as metabasis.^[2][1] L&S also gives the sense of a refusal.^[1]

In the 10th century Liutprand of Cremona used it for a halt of the emperor's procession outside Constantinople, glossing it statio.^[5] English took it over in the 1570s, first in rhetoric.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian names the shifting of a charge metastasis.^[2][3]
• 5th century AD – Martianus Capella lists it among the figures, after Aquila Romanus.^[2][3]
• 1570s – Borrowed into English as metastasis.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (rhetoric) The shifting of a charge or of blame onto another.^[2]
2. (rhetoric) Imagining what will be or would have been at another time.^[2]
3. (rhetoric) A transition from one point to another, the same as metabasis.^[1][2]
4. (rhetoric) A refusal.^[1]
5. (Medieval Latin) A halt or station in an imperial procession.^[5]

Related words

• English metastasis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Novum Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis ab anno DCCC usque ad annum MCC (1957–), Copenhagen / Geneva / Paris: Union Académique Internationale; IRHT