orbo

Forms

orbō (present infinitive orbāre, perfect active orbāvī, supine orbātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin orbus (“bereaved, orphaned”) + -ō.^[2][1] De Vaan traces orbus to Proto-Italic *orfo- (“heir, orphan”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₃orbʰ-o- (“turning, what is turned over”), which came to mean inheritance or heir.^[3] He cites Weiss's view that the root meant to pass from one social class to another.^[3] Cognate with Old Irish orb (“heir; inheritance”) and Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “orphaned”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates the verb from Pacuvius.^[3] The TLL cites from Pacuvius the short perfect form ⟨orbasti⟩.^[4][5] The OLD's earliest quotation in the general sense is from an unnamed tragedy: a character says that a father robbed him of the light.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The verb means to bereave someone of a relative by death: Cicero writes of a mother bereaved of her son.^[2][6] Used without an ablative it is to leave desolate, usually to make childless, and an African inscription has death taking a relative away.^[2] More widely it is to rob someone of anything precious.^[2][1] Lewis & Short give prīvō and viduō as synonyms.^[6]

Timeline

• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius has the perfect orbasti.^[4][3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a mother bereaved of her son.^[2][6][5]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius of a bereaved husband.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bereave someone of a relative by death; without an ablative, to leave desolate, make childless.^[2][6][1]
2. To take away a relative in death.^[2]
3. To rob, deprive someone of anything necessary or precious.^[2][6][1]

Word family

• exorbātus
• orbātiō
• orbātor

Related words

• orbus
• orbitās

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press