perfugio

Forms

perfugiō (present infinitive perfugere, perfect active perfūgī); third (-iō variant) conjugation, no supine stem, impersonal in the passive^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- + fugiō (“to flee”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces ⟨fugiō⟩ to Proto-Italic *fug-i- (“to flee”) and Proto-Indo-European *bʰug-i- (“to flee”), cognate with Ancient Greek φεύγω (pheúgō, “to flee”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Sisenna and Cicero on, mostly in the historians.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means “to take refuge, escape” to a person or place, as in Livy and in Nepos' flight to Corinth.^[2][5] In particular it is to desert to the enemy: Cicero speaks of enemies who had fled to our generals, and of a man of Veii who deserted to the Romans.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “flee, take refuge”.^[6]

Timeline

• 120–67 BC – Sisenna.^[3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of deserters.^[2][7]
• c. 100–24 BC – Nepos of fleeing to Corinth.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take refuge, escape.^[2][5][1][6]
2. To desert to the enemy.^[2][1]

Word family

• perfuga
• perfugium

Related words

• fugiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de