pabulor

Forms

pābulor (present infinitive pābulārī, perfect active pābulātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pābulum (“fodder, food”) + -or, a deponent verb made from the noun, as Priscian already said.^[2][1][3] De Vaan explains pābulum from the root of pāscō (“to feed, graze”), Proto-Italic *pāþlo- from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-dʰlo-.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Varro uses it of herds of cattle and goats that like crags and woods to graze in.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Of animals it is to graze, as Columella's goat that feeds quietly and slowly.^[2][5] Of troops it is to collect fodder, to forage, often in Caesar, as when he sent three legions out foraging, and in Livy and Tacitus.^[2][5] Columella also uses it transitively, of feeding olive trees with dung every third year.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro, of grazing herds.^[2][6]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of foraging troops.^[2][5][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella, of manuring olive trees.^[2][5][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of animals, to graze, feed.^[2][5][1]
2. Of troops, to forage; to seek food or a living.^[2][5][1]
3. (transitive) To feed (plants), manure.^[2][5][1]

Word family

• pābulātiō
• pābulātor

Related words

• pābulātōrius
• pābulum

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 k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de