permeo

Forms

permeō (present infinitive permeāre, perfect active permeāvī, supine permeātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- + meō (“to go, pass”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces meō to Proto-Italic *mejo- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂mei-o- (“to exchange”), assuming that a sense “change places” became “go on, proceed” in Latin; he thinks the verb may have been made from a noun meaning “movement, passage”.^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek ἀμείβω (ameíbō, “to exchange, change”) and Lithuanian maĩnas (“exchange”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Varro on,^[3] in a fragment quoted by Nonius that speaks of an evil like gangrene that has spread through all the limbs of the people.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means to pass through or across: Columella says ducks are troubled if they lack open spaces to move about in, Pliny the Elder uses it of locusts crossing vast tracts and of rivers flowing through lakes and cities, and Tacitus of the Romans passing through dark forests.^[2][5] Ovid has a letter of his crossing so many seas and lands.^[2] Of a weapon it is to pierce,^[2] and Tacitus has spears that carried too far for arrows to match them.^[2][6]

From Seneca on it is also to pervade: the air permeates what lies in the middle of things, and Apuleius speaks of the belief that a god pervades all things.^[2][3] The TLL finds it used most often by Pliny the Elder, Ammianus, Augustine and Martianus Capella.^[3] Church Latin kept the senses of going through and crossing.^[7] English took the participle as permeate in the 1650s.^[8]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of an evil spreading through the people.^[3][9]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a letter crossing seas and lands.^[2][9]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of air pervading things.^[2][9]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of a god pervading all things.^[2][9]
• 1650s – English borrows its participle as permeate.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To make one's way across, pass from one side to the other; to penetrate (as far as a place).^[2][5]
2. (transitive) To pass through, traverse; of a weapon, to pierce.^[2][6]
3. To be pervasive; to permeate, pervade.^[2][3]

Word family

• permeābilis
• permeator
• permeātus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de