percuro

Forms

percūrō (present infinitive percūrāre, perfect active percūrāvī, supine percūrātum); first conjugation^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- + cūrō (“to take care of, treat”).^[1][3][4] De Vaan derives cūrō from cūra (“care”), which he takes from Proto-Italic *kʷois-ā- (“care, watch”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *kʷei-s- (“to heed”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it in prose from Livy on.^[3] Livy uses it of a wound: Hannibal set out to attack Victumulae with his wound hardly healed (vixdum satis percurato vulnere).^[3][6][7]

Semantic evolution

Curtius has the same phrase of a wound not yet healed,^[3] Columella says that a sore which has suppurated heals slowly,^[3][6] and Pliny the Elder uses it of treating scrofulous swellings daily until they are cured.^[3][2] It is also said of the remedy: Seneca writes of waters that cure chronic ailments the doctors had given up on.^[3][6]

Seneca used it figuratively of the mind: we must cure the sick mind and free it from its vices (percurare mentem aegram).^[2][3][7] In Late Latin it is frequent in the veterinary writers Chiron and Vegetius and in the medical writer Theodorus Priscianus.^[3]

Timeline

• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of a healed wound.^[3][8]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of curing ailments and, figuratively, the mind.^[3][2][8]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of a sore that heals slowly.^[3][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of curing scrofulous swellings.^[3][8]
• 4th century AD – The veterinary treatise of Chiron uses it often.^[3][8]
• c. 400 AD – Vegetius uses it in his treatise on veterinary medicine.^[3][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To heal completely, cure (a wound, disease or patient).^[1][2][3]
2. (of a remedy) To cure.^[3][6]
3. (figurative) To cure (the mind).^[2][3]

Usage notes

Manuscripts confuse it with prōcūrō and percurrō.^[3] Lewis & Short note that it is perhaps not found before Augustus.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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. ^ 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de