perdo

Forms

perdō (present infinitive perdere, perfect active perdidī); third conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1] Early Latin has an old present subjunctive perduim, perduīs, perduit, perduint, common in Plautus' curses and still used by Cicero in dī tē perduint.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin per- + -dō, with the prefix in its pejorative sense of destruction.^[2][4][1] The second part is disputed: de Vaan derives the Latin compounds in ⟨-dere⟩ from the reduplicated present of dō “to give”, Proto-Italic *di-d-e-, from Proto-Indo-European *di-dh₃- (“to give”),^[5] while the TLL, following Leumann, and Wiktionary trace ⟨perdere⟩ to *dʰeh₁- (“to put, make”), the root of faciō.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Naevius uses it in a curse: ut illum dī perdant, quī prīmus holitor caepam prōtulit, “may the gods destroy the gardener who first brought out the onion”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Perdere is first “to ruin, destroy”, often hyperbolically in comedy and in curses, and also “to kill”.^[2][3] In a weaker sense it means “to spoil, impair” (a play, one's health).^[2] The commonest sense is “to lose”: possessions, troops, relatives by death, one's memory of something; to fail to get something within reach, to lose an election or a lawsuit.^[2][1] Finally it means “to waste, squander” money or opportunities, as in operam perdere “to waste one's effort”.^[2][3]

Döderlein distinguishes āmittō, losing something so that it is no longer in one's possession, from perdere, losing it so that it is destroyed or made useless.^[6] Church Latin uses it for “to lose, ruin, destroy”.^[7] Its past participle gave perditus “lost, ruined”.^[2][1]

Timeline

• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius: ut illum dī perdant.^[2][8]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: ubi ego fōrmam perdidī?, “where did I lose my looks?”^[2][8]
• 190–159 BC – Terence: perii hercle, nōmen perdidī, “I'm done for, I have forgotten the name”.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of a general who lost his army.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To ruin, destroy;^[2][3][1] dī tē perduint, may the gods destroy you.^[2][3][1]
2. To kill.^[2]
3. To spoil, impair (one's health or a work).^[2]
4. To lose (property, troops, relatives); to forget.^[2][3][1]
5. To fail to obtain; to lose (an election or a lawsuit).^[2][1]
6. To waste, squander;^[2][3][1] operam perdere, to waste one's effort.^[2][3][1]

Word family

• dēperdō
• disperdō
• experdō
• imperditus
• perditim
• perditiō
• perditor
• perditrix
• perditus
• frūgiperdius
• officiperda
• perditē

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de