Etymologically
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oppeto

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈɔp.pɛ.toː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈɔp.pe.to][1]

Forms

oppetō (present infinitive oppetere, perfect active oppetīvī or oppetiī, supine oppetītum); third conjugation[1] It is also spelled obpetō.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin ob- + petō (“to make for, seek”).[2][1][4] De Vaan traces petō to Proto-Italic *pet-e/o- and connects it with a root meaning to fly, assuming a shift from flying up towards something to trying to get it.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short's first example is from a tragedy of Ennius, quoted by Cicero: to meet an evil plague.[3][6] Plautus has the same phrase.[3]

Semantic evolution

It is to go to meet something, usually an evil, and above all death: with ⟨mortem⟩ it means to meet one's death.[3][2] The OLD stresses a premature death or fate.[2] Used without an object, understood as death, it means to perish: Virgil writes of the Mycenaean leader who fell at his own threshold by the hand of his wife.[2] Lewis & Short give obeō, occumbō and intereō as synonyms.[3] Church Latin glosses it to encounter or meet with.[7]

Timeline

  • 204–169 BC – Ennius of meeting an evil plague.[3][6]
  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has the same phrase.[3][6]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it without an object, of a leader who perished.[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To go to meet, encounter, usually an evil; with mortem, to meet one's death.[2][3][1][7]
  2. Without an object, to meet one's end, perish, often before one's time.[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 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 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. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson