penetrabilis

Forms

penetrābilis (neuter penetrābile, comparative penetrābilior); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin penetrō (“to enter, penetrate”) + -bilis.^[2][1][3] De Vaan suggests that penetrō was formed to penitus (“from within, deeply”) on the model of intrō² beside intus, and that the group may go back to a stem ⟨*pen-et-⟩, “food”, then “stock”, “interior”, related to penus (“store of food”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Virgil on,^[3] who has num mage sit nostrum penetrabile telum, “whether my weapon is the more piercing”, in the Aeneid, and in the Georgics the piercing cold of the north wind.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It has two opposite senses, active and passive.^[2][3] Actively it means piercing, penetrating: Ovid has Jupiter's piercing thunderbolt, Manilius uses it of the flood of the Ocean, Seneca of a penetrating warmth, and Apuleius of a piercing sound; figuratively it means acute or trenchant, as Apuleius' penetrating thought and Gellius' biting complaint.^[2] Passively it means that can be pierced, penetrable, as Ovid's body that no weapon can pierce; then permeable, as Seneca's earth that the winds pass through; and figuratively open to the mind, as Manilius' reason to which the sky itself is penetrable.^[2][5] Servius and Priscian distinguish it from penetrālis, keeping that word for what is innermost or what pierces and this one for what is easily pierced, and the manuscripts often confuse the two.^[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means sharp, piercing, or able to be penetrated.^[6] English took it over in the early 15th century as penetrable, first in the sense penetrating.^[7]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a piercing weapon and piercing cold.^[2][3][8]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it in both the active and the passive sense.^[2][8]
• 1st century AD – Manilius uses it figuratively of the sky open to reason.^[2][8]
• c. 400 AD – Servius distinguishes it from penetrālis.^[3][8]
• early 15th century – English borrows it as penetrable.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Piercing, penetrating; of cold, heat, sound and the like, that penetrates.^[2][5]
2. Figuratively, penetrating, acute, trenchant.^[2]
3. That can be pierced, penetrable.^[2][5]
4. Allowing passage, permeable; figuratively, accessible to the mind or will.^[2]

Word family

• impenetrābilis

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de