Etymologically
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nauseo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈnau̯.se.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈnaːu̯.se.o][1]

Forms

nauseō (present infinitive nauseāre, perfect active nauseāvī, supine nauseātum); first conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin nausea (“seasickness”) + -ō,[2][3][1] The noun is borrowed from Ancient Greek ναυσία (nausía),[2][4][1] from ναῦς (naûs, “ship”).[1] The TLL compares the Greek verb ναυσιάω (nausiáō).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus' Amphitruo, where a character, just off a ship, says etiam nunc nauseo, “I am still seasick”.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

From seasickness it was extended to any nausea: Cicero, in the Philippics and a letter, uses it of a man who belches and vomits,[2][6] and Celsus and Juvenal of feeling sick.[2][6] In the De natura deorum Cicero uses it figuratively of someone spewing out nonsense,[6][2] and Phaedrus has it of feeling disgust at folly.[6]

The TLL records a deponent form nauseor beside the active,[3] and the OLD the spelling nausiō.[2] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means “to vomit, be seasick”.[7] English took the participle stem as nauseate in the 1630s.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of seasickness.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of nausea and, figuratively, of uttering nonsense.[2][6][5]
  • c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus uses it of disgust.[6][5]
  • 1630s – English borrows the stem as nauseate.[8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To be seasick.[2][6]
  2. To feel sick, be inclined to vomit.[2][6]
  3. (figurative) To feel disgust or loathing; to spew out (nonsense).[2][6]

Word family

  • nauseabilis
  • nauseābundus
  • nauseātor

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com