percitus

Forms

percitus (feminine percita, neuter percitum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

Used as an adjective, it is the past participle from Latin percieō (“to set in motion, stir up”),^[1][2][3] and that verb is a compound of per- (“through, thoroughly”) and cieō (“to set in motion, rouse”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a participle it appears in Plautus, in a line meaning “so that she won't think you did it stirred by love” (amōris causā percitum).^[1] Köbler dates the word from Terence,^[2] who has incrēdibilī rē atque atrōcī percitus, “roused by an unbelievable and dreadful thing”.^[1]

Semantic evolution

In the sense of the verb it was used of people stirred by feelings: Lucretius speaks of a heat roused to motion,^[1] and Livy of a man stirred by anger.^[1] The OLD records it also as an adjective of character, “excitable, turbulent”,^[1] and Conte cites Sallust's Histories and Livy for a person of irritable temper.^[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means aroused or driven.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the participle of being stirred by love.^[1][2]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of a man roused by a dreadful event.^[1][2]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of heat set in motion.^[1][2]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust uses it of an irritable character.^[3][2]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of anger and of temper.^[1][3][2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Roused, stirred up, excited (by a feeling or event).^[1][4]
2. Of character: excitable, irritable, turbulent.^[1][3]

Related words

• cieō
• incitus¹

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
3. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson