pappo

Forms

pappō (present infinitive pappāre, perfect active pappāvī); first conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1] Also spelled papō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin pappa (“food (a child's word)”) + -ō.^[4][5] The OLD calls the noun a child's word for food,^[4] and Etymonline a word widespread in children's language, imitating the noise of a hungry infant.^[6] Wiktionary considers the verb possibly a nursery word of imitative origin, or connects it with Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to eat, feed”), the root of pāscō and pābulum.^[1] An ancient glossary, quoted in the TLL, says that one tells infants ⟨papa⟩, meaning “eat”, and that the movement of the lips itself shows the sense.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it in the Epidicus: a freed slave needs something to eat (quod pappet).^[2][7][8]

Semantic evolution

It remained rare: after Plautus the classical record has only Persius.^[2][8] Neo-Latin writers took it up again as a homely word for eating: Guarino writes in 1429 of a man so hungry after a fever that he calls out to papare, and a letter of 1497 says of a baby that it babbles and eats but does not yet talk (lallat, pappat, non fatur).^[3] Medieval Latin papo and Old French pape are the sources of English pap “soft food for infants”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Epidicus.^[2][9]
• 34–62 AD – Persius uses it.^[2][9]
• late 14th century – English borrows pap from Old French and Medieval Latin.^[6]
• 1429 – Guarino uses papare in a letter.^[3]
• 1497 – A letter uses pappat of a baby.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To eat soft or mashed food, eat pap.^[4][2]
2. To eat.^[2][7]

Related words

• English pap

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Ramminger, Johann, Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, www.neulatein.de
4. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de