perpoto

Forms

perpōtō (present infinitive perpōtāre, perfect active perpōtāvī, supine perpōtum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- + pōtō (“to drink”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan lists the simple verb among the derivatives of pōtus (“drunk”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *pōto- (“drunk”) and Proto-Indo-European *peh₃- (“to drink”); he compares Hittite pāš-i (“to swallow”) and Ancient Greek ἐπόθην (epóthēn).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first use is in Plautus' Mostellaria, of someone who drank without a break after his father had gone abroad, perpotasse adsiduo.^[2][5][3][6]

Semantic evolution

Its usual sense is to drink on and on, to carouse, often with a note of censure:^[2][3] Cicero speaks of drinking whole days through and of one who, hiding, perpotavit ad vesperum, drank until evening.^[2][5] Curtius writes of the mad delight in drinking, and Quintilian uses it of drinking in the baths.^[2][7] Lucretius uses it transitively, of children drinking down the bitter juice of wormwood.^[2][5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of continual drinking.^[2][6]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it transitively, “to drink up”.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of drinking whole days and until evening.^[2][5][6]
• 1st century AD – Curtius writes of the delight in drinking.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To drink heavily, carouse.^[2][5]
2. (transitive) To drink the whole of, drink up.^[2][5]

Word family

• perpōtātiō

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 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn