occulto

Forms

occultō (present infinitive occultāre, perfect active occultāvī, supine occultātum); first conjugation^[1] Plautus has the old perfect subjunctive occultāssis.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is the frequentative of occulō (“to cover over, hide”), formed with ⟨-tō⟩ on the participle ⟨occultus⟩.^[2][1][3] De Vaan explains ⟨occulō⟩ as ob with a verb ⟨*kele-⟩, from Proto-Italic *kele/o- and Proto-Indo-European *ḱel-e/o- (“to hide”), cognate with Old Irish ceilid (“hides”) and Old English helan (“to hide”); cēlō (“to conceal”) belongs to the same root.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Curculio: tacē, occultēmus lūmen et vōcem, “quiet, let's hide the light and our voices”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to keep something out of sight, to hide (Plautus: I'll run away and hide myself for a few days), and to cover a sound, as the Curetes drowned the cries of the infant Jupiter in Crete (Lucretius).^[2] Its most common figurative sense is to keep facts secret or suppress them, as Plautus' captive conceals his rank, family and wealth.^[2]

Döderlein contrasts cēlō, to keep something from someone's knowledge, with occulere and occultāre, to hide something from view.^[5] Church Latin glosses it “hide, conceal”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of hiding a light and of concealing one's rank.^[2][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of drowning a sound.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hide, conceal (from sight); (reflexive) to hide oneself.^[2][1][6]
2. To drown, cover (a sound).^[2]
3. To keep secret, suppress.^[2][3]

Word family

• occultātiō
• occultātor

Related words

• occulō
• occultus
• cēlō
• English occult

Usage notes

A separate adverb occultō, the ablative of occultus, means “secretly, in secret”, a form of occultē.^[2][1]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de