ominor

Forms

ōminor (present infinitive ōminārī, perfect active ōminātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1] An active ōminō occurs in the Atellan farces of Pomponius and in Firmicus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ōmen (“sign, omen”), a deponent verb.^[2][4] Varro gives an older form ⟨osmen⟩ for the noun, which de Vaan suspects may be a folk-etymological invention.^[4] He finds a link with a Hittite verb for “trust” unconvincing and prefers, with others, Proto-Indo-European *h₃ekʷ-s-mn (“a sighting”), from a root meaning “to see”, though Latin has no other trace of that verb.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on:^[4] in the Rudens one speaker answers another's gloomy reply with melius ominare, “speak words of better omen”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its main sense is to foretell a future event or outcome, to presage:^[2] Cicero says he would rather prophesy for another state than for his own, and Livy has a happy and prosperous rule foretold, and ships that returned as though they had foreseen something.^[5][6] Because spoken words were held to be omens, it was also used of words of good or bad omen:^[2] Horace has “words of ill omen”, and Pliny the Younger wishes someone a consulship as both a wish and a presage.^[5][6] Cicero also uses it for gloomy prophecies, wishing that a man would forebode them for his own head.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses melius ominare.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for prophesying and for gloomy forebodings.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it with an accusative and infinitive.^[2][7]
• 343/350 AD – Firmicus uses the active ōminō.^[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To know or foretell from omens, presage, prognosticate.^[2][8]
2. To speak words of good or bad omen; to wish (something) as an omen.^[2][5]
3. To make gloomy prophecies, forebode.^[2]

Word family

• ōminātor

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press