occaeco

Forms

occaecō (present infinitive occaecāre, perfect active occaecāvī, supine occaecātum); first conjugation^[1] It is also spelled obcaecō, a spelling found from the Rhetorica ad Herennium on.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ob- + caecō (“to make blind”),^[2][1][4] a verb formed from caecus (“blind”).^[5] De Vaan traces the adjective to Proto-Italic *kaiko- and Proto-Indo-European *keh₂i-ko- (“one-eyed”), noting that such ⟨-ko-⟩ derivatives need not go back to Proto-Indo-European, although the root probably does.^[5]

Cognate with Old Irish cáech (“one-eyed”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus,^[2][3] where in the Menaechmi a speaker asks whether the sun is not quite darkened beside the radiance of this body.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Its first uses are of darkening or blotting out light: Pacuvius speaks of the blackness of night and clouds that darkens everything, and Livy of a thick fog that had blotted out the daylight.^[2][6] Of people and eyes it meant to blind, usually for a time: Livy describes an enemy blinded by dust, and Celsus people who suddenly lose their sight without any visible cause.^[2][7] Lewis and Short find the literal sense of blinding only after Augustus.^[6]

Figuratively it meant to blind the mind: in Cicero the hope of plunder blinds men's minds, and people are blinded by desire.^[2][8] It also meant to make a speech obscure, as when Cicero says that an obscure narrative darkens the whole speech.^[2][8] In farming it was used of hiding seed in the earth and of stopping up ditches,^[2][7] and in the Culex fear paralyses the limbs.^[8][9] The glossaries render it with ἐκτυφλόω (ektuphlóō) and excaecō.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of the sun being darkened.^[2][11]
• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius uses it of the darkness of night and storm clouds.^[2][11]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of minds blinded by greed and of an obscure speech.^[2][11]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of an enemy blinded by dust and of fog blotting out the day.^[2][11]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it of sudden blindness.^[2][11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To blind, deprive of sight (usually for a time).^[2][6][8]
2. To darken, blot out (light).^[2][6]
3. (figurative) To blind (the mind), delude.^[2][7]
4. (figurative) To make obscure or unintelligible.^[2][8]
5. To hide from view, bury (seed); to stop up (ditches).^[2][4]
6. To paralyse.^[8][9]

Word family

• occaecātiō

Related words

• caecō

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 p q r s Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c d e f Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
10. ^ Goetz, Georg (1888–1923), Corpus glossariorum Latinorum, Leipzig: Teubner; vols. VI–VII Thesaurus glossarum emendatarum, digital ed. CGLO, Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
11. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de