pectino

Forms

pectinō (present infinitive pectināre, perfect active pectināvī, supine pectinātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin pecten + -ō.^[2][3][4] The noun goes back to Proto-Italic *petken- (“comb”) and Proto-Indo-European *p(e)tḱ-en-, from the root of pectō (“to comb”);^[5] cognate with Ancient Greek κτείς (kteís, “comb”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder writes of soils so rich that the young crop must be “combed”, pectinari segetem in herba, with a harrow with iron teeth.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Apuleius uses it of a well-combed mane,^[4][7] the jurist Paulus of carded wool,^[4] and Marcellus Empiricus of combing the hair lightly.^[4] The grammarian Caper rejected it in favour of pectō (“pecto caput, non pectino”), but later writers often used it to explain that verb.^[3]

It lived on in the Romance languages: Italian pettinare, French peigner, Spanish peinar and Portuguese pentear.^[3] Its participle pectinatus gave English pectinate, “having teeth like a comb”, first recorded in 1793.^[8]

Timeline

• 23–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of harrowing a growing crop.^[4][9]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of a combed mane.^[4][9]
• 1793 – English pectinate is first recorded.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To comb (hair, a mane).^[2][4]
2. To card (wool).^[6][4]
3. (agriculture) To harrow a growing crop.^[6][4][10]

Word family

• pectinātim
• pectinātor

Related words

• English pectinate

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
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 c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
10. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier