obtorqueo

Forms

obtorqueō (present infinitive obtorquēre, perfect active obtorsī, supine obtortum); second conjugation^[1] Plautus also spells it optorqueō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ob- + torqueō (“to twist”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces torqueō to Proto-Italic *torkʷ-eie- (“to twist”) and Proto-Indo-European *torkʷ-eie- (“to make twist”), a causative verb.^[4] Cognate with Hittite tar(k)u-zi (“to dance”), Sanskrit तर्कय (tarkaya-, “to consider”) and Tocharian B tärk- (“to turn”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[3][5] mostly in the participle: a fragment of the Amphitruo has manufestum hunc obtortō collō teneō fūrem flāgitī, “I hold this man by the twisted neck, caught in the act, a thief of outrage”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In early and Classical Latin it is used above all in the phrases obtortō collō and obtortā gulā, of someone seized by the throat, as with a noose, and dragged off to a magistrate or to prison.^[2][6] Cicero has a man dragged off in this way to chains and darkness,^[2][7] and Seneca, in the Apocolocyntosis, has Cyllenius drag Claudius to the underworld by the neck.^[2][3]

More generally it means to turn something in a direction, as Accius and Statius use it of turning a ship's prow,^[7][2] or to twist something on itself: Virgil describes a flexible circlet of twisted gold worn on the chest round the neck,^[2][6] Petronius a lip twisted awry, and Apuleius doors wrenched from their hinges.^[2] Jerome speaks of a twisted tongue in pronouncing Hebrew letters.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses obtortō collō of someone held or dragged by the neck.^[2][5]
• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius uses it of turning a ship's prow.^[7][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses obtortā gulā of a man dragged off to prison.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a circlet of twisted gold.^[2][5]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome speaks of a twisted tongue.^[3][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To seize or hold by the neck, as with a noose; to drag off by the throat (mostly obtortō collō, obtortā gulā).^[2][6]
2. To turn in a given direction.^[2][7]
3. To twist or bend on itself; to wrench.^[2][7]

Word family

• obtortiō
• obtortus

Related words

• attorqueō
• circumtorqueō
• contorqueō
• dētorqueō
• distorqueō
• extorqueō
• intorqueō
• pertorqueō
• praetorqueō
• retorqueō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press