Etymologically
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pavesco

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Forms

pavēscō (present infinitive pavēscere); third conjugation, no perfect or supine stems[1] Manuscripts often spell it pavisco.[2] The TLL lists perfect forms under it, though they could also belong to paveō.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin paveō (“to be afraid”) + -ēscō, an inchoative verb.[3][1][4] De Vaan traces paveō to Proto-Italic *paw-ē- (“to be frightened”) and Proto-Indo-European *pou-eh₁- (“to fear”), following Schrijver's link with Celtic words for fear such as Old Irish omun and Old Irish úath.[5] Walde–Hofmann and Ernout–Meillet instead take it as the stative partner of paviō (“to strike”), “to be struck” and so “to fear”, which de Vaan thinks possible.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short call it mostly post-Augustan;[4] its earliest citation in the OLD is in Sallust, omni strepitu pavescere, “to take fright at every noise”.[3]

Semantic evolution

Intransitively it means to take fright or become alarmed, in Seneca of trembling at a crash of thunder,[3] in Columella of an animal startled by a touch,[4][6] and in Gellius of growing pale with fear little by little.[3][4] From Tacitus and Silius Italicus it also takes an object, “to become afraid of”: war, portents or the empty names of legions.[3][4] A passive is found in Cassiodorus.[6] Stelten has it in Ecclesiastical Latin as “become afraid”.[7]

Timeline

  • 86–34 BC – Sallust, “take fright”.[3][8]
  • 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus uses it with an object.[3][8]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus, “become afraid of”.[3][8]
  • c. 165 AD – Gellius, of growing pale with fear.[3][8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (intransitive) To take fright, become alarmed.[3][4][1]
  2. (transitive) To become afraid of, dread.[3][4][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de