Etymologically
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munero

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈmuː.nɛ.roː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈmuː.ne.ro][1]

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