perambulo

Forms

perambulō (present infinitive perambulāre, perfect active perambulāvī, supine perambulātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- (“through”) + ambulō (“to walk”).^[2][3][4] De Vaan derives the simple verb from Proto-Italic *ala- (“to wander”), Proto-Indo-European *h₂elh₂- (“to wander”), with ⟨amb-⟩, “around”; he compares Umbrian amb-oltu (“must go around”) and Ancient Greek ἀλάομαι (aláomai, “to wander, roam”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan records it in Plautus,^[5] whose Mostellaria has qualubet perambula aedis oppido tamquam tuas, “walk about the house wherever you like, just as if it were yours”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The TLL finds it rarely in Plautus, Catullus, Varro, Horace, Ovid and the two Senecas,^[3] and Lewis & Short call it poetic and post-Augustan in prose.^[7] Varro writes of people who have travelled through many lands and Horace of an ox roaming the fields safely;^[2][6] Ovid says cold runs through the limbs.^[2][6] Catullus and Seneca use it of making the round of a series of places, and Seneca of a doctor visiting his patients in turn.^[2][8] The Vulgate uses it of walking through the earth or a whole island,^[7] and in Ecclesiastical Latin it is to walk about or pass through.^[9] It survives in Romanian plimba and preumbla.^[1] English perambulate (1560s) comes from its past participle.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of walking about a house.^[2][5][11]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it of making the round of bedrooms.^[2][7][11]
• 65–8 BC – Horace writes of an ox roaming the fields.^[2][11]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of a doctor visiting his patients.^[2][8][11]
• 1560s – English borrows perambulate from its past participle.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To walk about in, roam through; to travel through, tour.^[2][7]
2. (of things) To pass through, run through (the limbs).^[2][6]
3. To visit in turn, make the round of;^[2][8] (of a doctor) to visit (patients).^[2][8]

Related words

• abambulō
• ambulō
• circumambulō
• inambulō
• praeambulō
• deambulō
• English perambulate

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 m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c 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 d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de