osculor

Forms

ōsculor (present infinitive ōsculārī or ōsculārier, perfect active ōsculātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1] Plautus has an old form ausculor, with a pun on auscultō.^[2][3] Titinius has active forms of ōsculō.^[2] The old infinitive ōsculārier appears in Plautus.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ōsculum (“kiss”) + -ō.^[2][4][1] ōsculum is a derivative of ōs (“mouth”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *ōs- and Proto-Indo-European *h₃eh₁-os (“mouth”), comparing Sanskrit आस् (ā́s-, “mouth”), Hittite aiš (“mouth”) and Old Irish á (“mouth”).^[5][1] De Vaan dates both the noun and the verb from Plautus.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it, both as ōsculor and in the old spelling ausculor, which he plays off against auscultō, to listen.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

It means to kiss a person or a part of the body, and, without an object, to exchange kisses.^[2][3] Wiktionary also gives the figurative sense to embrace or prize something.^[1] Paul the Deacon's epitome of Festus records the form ausculor beside ōsculum.^[2][4] Church Latin glosses it to kiss or caress.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it, also as ausculor.^[2][7]
• end of 2nd or beginning of 1st century BC – Titinius has the active ōsculō.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To kiss; without an object, to exchange kisses.^[2][3][6][1]
2. Figuratively, to embrace, value highly.^[1]

Word family

• adōsculor
• deōsculor
• exōsculor
• ōsculābundus
• ōsculātiō
• osculentia
• perosculor

Related words

• ōs

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ a b c 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 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