percenseo

Forms

percēnseō (present infinitive percēnsēre, perfect active percēnsuī, supine percēnsum); second conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- (“through”) + cēnseō (“to count, reckon”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces cēnseō to Proto-Italic *knsē- (“to estimate”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱns-eh₁- (“to announce”), cognate with Sanskrit and Avestan verbs meaning to speak solemnly;^[4] Oscan has its own verb ⟨censaum⟩ for passing the census.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest citations in the OLD and Lewis & Short are Cicero's: in a speech on the agrarian law, of surveying Italy and going on to Sicily, and in the Partitiones oratoriae, of going through the places of invention.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is a full count or survey: Livy uses it of reckoning up peoples, and Tacitus of counting the legions.^[5] It is also to examine closely, as Grattius has of puppies looked over to pick out the bad ones,^[2] and Livy uses it of making a tour through Thessaly.^[2] In speech it is going over things or listing them, as Cicero says of counting up the favours of the senate.^[2] Apuleius has it of reciting a whole string of insults.^[2]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of surveying and of enumerating.^[2][5][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of counting peoples and touring a country.^[2][5][6]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius, of reciting insults.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make a complete count or survey of; to reckon up.^[2][5][1]
2. To examine thoroughly; to travel through, make a tour of.^[2][5][1]
3. To go over in the mind, review.^[2][5]
4. To go over in words, enumerate; to recite from start to finish.^[2][5]

Word family

• percensiō

Related words

• accēnseō
• cēnseō
• recēnseō
• succēnseō
• suscēnseō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de