munero

Forms

mūnerō (present infinitive mūnerāre, perfect active mūnerāvī, supine mūnerātum); first conjugation^[1] The deponent mūneror is used beside the active.^[2][3] Some editors restore the older spelling moen- in Plautus.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin mūnus (“gift; duty”), a denominative verb.^[2][1][4] The noun goes back to Proto-Italic *moinos- (“duty, obligation, task”), and perhaps to Proto-Indo-European *h₂moi-no- (“exchange”), which de Vaan gives with a query.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus (c. 250–184 BC) on,^[5][6] in the Miles Gloriosus: “give me, husband, something to present my mother with on the Kalends” (da, mi vir, calendis meam qui matrem munerem).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Plautus also has it with the thing given as object and the person in the dative, of rendering a favour,^[2][3] a construction Accius uses too.^[3] Cicero has the active with the ablative of the gift and the deponent mūneror, as when nature gives one gift to one person and another to another.^[3] Gellius lists it among the verbs that old writers used in both forms.^[4][3] It goes on in Late Latin in Spartianus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Macrobius and Symmachus,^[3] and Ecclesiastical Latin uses it for bestowing a gift and honouring or rewarding with one.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of presenting someone with a gift and of rendering a favour.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses both the active and the deponent.^[3][6]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius discusses its deponent use.^[4][6]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus uses it of people rewarded with gifts.^[3][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (with the accusative of the person and the ablative of the thing) To present someone with a gift, to reward or honour.^[2][3][7]
2. (with the accusative of the thing and the dative of the person) To bestow, give.^[2][3]

Usage notes

The -u- is scanned short in one verse inscription.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson