offoco

Forms

offōcō (present infinitive offōcāre, perfect active offōcāvī, supine offōcātum); first conjugation^[1] The OLD also records offūcō;^[2] Lewis & Short and the TLL add the spelling obf-.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ob- + faux (“throat”) with the verbal ending -ō,^[2][4] like suffōcō.^[4] De Vaan calls the origin of faux unknown.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Seneca has it in the dialogues, of people choked by their own possessions (bonis suis offocantur), though the reading is uncertain.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Florus uses it literally of men who offered their throats to be strangled by one another.^[3][8] Tertullian has it of waves that choke, and Augustine uses it too.^[3][7] Paulus' epitome of Festus records the form offūcō for giving water into the throat to be swallowed.^[3][8]

Timeline

• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of being choked by possessions.^[7][9]
• c. 120 AD – Florus uses it of strangling.^[3][9]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it of waves that choke.^[3][9]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it.^[7][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To choke, throttle, suffocate.^[2][3]
2. (form offūcō) To pour water into the throat to be swallowed.^[3][8]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de