persecutio

Forms

persecūtiō f (genitive persecūtiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin persequor (“to follow persistently, pursue”) + -tiō.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first records are legal: the agrarian law preserved in an inscription (CIL I² 585) gives heirs the right to sue (perseqvtio),^[2] and the term recurs in the charter of Urso, in the Rhetorica ad Herennium and in Cicero.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the legal sense of pursuing a claim, the word kept the literal sense of a chase, used by the jurists of hunting a wild animal, and that of carrying an undertaking through to the end, in Apuleius.^[2][4][5]

In Christian Latin, from the Old Latin Bible and Tertullian on, it became the word for the persecution of Christians:^[3][4] Tertullian wrote a treatise on flight in time of persecution, and the Vulgate uses it in the Beatitudes.^[4][6] Medieval Latin kept the senses of pursuit, prosecution and persecution, and widened the last to harassment of any kind.^[7][8] English persecution comes from Old French and directly from the Latin.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses the plural in a legal sense, in the Orator, though the reading is doubtful.^[4][5][10]
• 3rd quarter of the 1st century BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium uses it for legal action.^[6][5][10]
• AD 125–175 – Apuleius uses it for carrying a business through.^[2][10]
• AD 140–180 – Gaius uses it of the pursuit of a wild animal.^[2][10]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it for the persecution of Christians.^[4][6][10]
• AD 390–406 – The Vulgate uses it in the Beatitudes.^[4][10]
• mid-14th century – English borrows it as persecution.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A chase, pursuit.^[2][4]
2. The carrying through or completion (of an undertaking).^[2][4]
3. (law) A legal action, or the right to sue; prosecution.^[2][4]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Persecution, especially of Christians.^[4][8][11]
5. (Medieval Latin) Harassment, attack.^[7]

Related words

• English persecution

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
11. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson