Etymologically
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percenseo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [pɛrˈkẽː.se.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [perˈt͡ʃɛn.se.o][1]

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

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