moror

Forms

moror (present infinitive morārī or morārier, perfect active morātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1] Ennius, Naevius and Pacuvius have the active morō.^[2][3] The old infinitive morārier is also found.^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from mora “delay”, or, as Schumacher proposed, continues an old iterative ⟨*morH-eye-⟩.^[2][4][5][3] De Vaan derives mora from Proto-Italic *morH-ā- (“delay”), from Proto-Indo-European *morh₂-, and compares Old Irish maraid (“lasts, remains”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Naevius, who uses the active form.^[3][2] Plautus has cūr nōn vēnistī? – hic mē morātust, “why didn't you come?” – “this man held me up”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Transitively morārī is “to delay, hold up”, “to detain, keep back”, and “to hold the attention of”.^[2][4][1] With a negative it means “not to care about, disregard” (Virgil: nec dōna moror, “I care nothing for gifts”), and in the legal formula nihil moror a prosecutor dropped a charge.^[2] It also means “to hinder, obstruct” an action.^[2][1] Intransitively it is “to delay, wait” (Plautus: ī, sequere illōs, nē morēre, “go, follow them, don't delay”), “to be slow in coming”, and “to stay, stop” somewhere.^[2][4][1]

Döderlein contrasts manēre, to stay as opposed to going away, with morārī, to linger as an interruption of movement.^[6] Church Latin glosses it “delay, abide, dwell, tarry, linger”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius uses the active morō.^[3][2][8]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: hic mē morātust;^[2][8] nē morēre.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero: quid sedēs, quid morāris?, “why do you sit there, why do you delay?”^[2][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil: nec dōna moror.^[2][8]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar writes of someone who stopped nowhere in Macedonia.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To delay, hold up; to detain, keep back.^[2][4][1][7]
2. To hold the attention of.^[2]
3. nōn morārī, to disregard, not care about;^[2][1] nihil moror, I drop the charge.^[2][1]
4. To hinder, obstruct.^[2][1]
5. To wait, delay, linger, tarry.^[2][4][1][7]
6. To stay, stop; to dwell.^[2][1][7]

Word family

• commoror
• dēmoror
• immoror
• remoror

Related words

• mora
• maneō

Usage notes

A separate verb mōror, with a long ō, “to be a fool”, from Ancient Greek μωρός (mōrós, “foolish”), occurs only in a pun of Nero's: Suetonius reports that he joked that Claudius had stopped morārī among men, lengthening the first syllable.^[4][5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ a b c d Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de