meto

Forms

metō (present infinitive metere, perfect active messuī, supine messum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *met-e- (“to reap”).^[2] De Vaan compares Welsh medi (“to mow, harvest”) and Middle Breton midiff (“to harvest”), and further Lithuanian mèsti (“to throw”) and Lithuanian mãtas (“measure”), which point to Proto-Indo-European *met-e- (“to measure”); the root etymology is disputed, and Schrijver tentatively posits a root Proto-Indo-European *h₂m- that would also give Ancient Greek ἀμάω (amáō, “to reap”).^[2] Wiktionary takes it from Proto-Indo-European *h₂met- (“to mow, reap”).^[1] The perfect messuī, for an expected ⟨messī⟩, follows other perfects in ⟨-uī⟩.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Poenulus, of reaping grain, and in the Mercator: “for yourself you plough, for yourself you sow, for yourself you also reap”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

It is to reap or harvest grain and other crops, to reap a harvest, as Pliny the Elder says Baetica does among its olives, or to strip a field.^[3][4] Poets use it of cutting off or cropping, as Tarquin lops the tallest lilies with a stick in Ovid, and Statius has death cutting the threads of the Fates with a sword.^[3] Virgil uses it of mowing down men in battle.^[3] The noun messis, harvest, and messor, reaper, are made from it.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of reaping grain.^[3][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of mowing down men with the sword.^[3][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of lopping lilies.^[3][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of harvests in Baetica.^[3][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To reap, harvest grain or other crops; to reap a field; without an object, to gather the harvest.^[3][4][6][1]
2. To cut off, crop, snip off; to cut through, sever.^[3][1]
3. To mow down in battle.^[3][1]

Word family

• dēmetō
• ēmetō
• messīcius
• messiō
• messor
• praemetō
• messis

Usage notes

A separate verb mētō, -āre, to measure, is a by-form of mētor.^[3][4][7] The OLD also lists Metō or Metōn, the Athenian astronomer who introduced a nineteen-year solar cycle, whence Metōnis annus, an indefinitely long period.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften