pernocto

Forms

pernoctō (present infinitive pernoctāre, perfect active pernoctāvī, supine pernoctātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pernox (“lasting all night”) + -ō,^[2] or formed directly from per- and nox (“night”), like peragrō.^[3][1] De Vaan traces nox to Proto-Italic *nok(w)-t- and Proto-Indo-European *nógʷʰ-t-s (“night”), cognate with Ancient Greek νύξ (núx) and Lithuanian naktìs.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Plautus, then in Terence and Cicero;^[3] Plautus' Truculentus has noctem pernoctāre perpetem, to spend the whole night through.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is to spend the night somewhere or with someone, as Varro says one must not spend the night outdoors, Cicero of a man staying the night at a place, and Livy of spending the night outside the walls.^[5] Ovid uses it of a letter that will spend the night with the beloved instead of the writer.^[5] The grammarian Priscian derives it from nox.^[3] It lives on in Italian pernottare, Catalan pernuytar and Portuguese pernoitar.^[3] Stelten gives “spend the night”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of spending the whole night.^[5][3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of staying the night.^[5][7]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of a letter staying the night.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spend or pass the night (in a place, with someone).^[2][5][1][6]
2. To guard a place all night.^[2]

Word family

• pernoctatio

Related words

• pernox
• nox

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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 d e f g 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