persecutor

Forms

persecūtor m (genitive persecūtōris); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is an agent noun formed from Latin persequor (“to follow persistently, pursue”) + -tor.^[2][1][3] Isidore of Seville explained the related participle ⟨persecūtus⟩ as “followed through to the end”.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears first in Christian texts: the TLL records it from the Old Latin Bible (the Vetus Latina) and Tertullian onwards, mostly of those who persecute Christians.^[2] Tertullian (c. 160–220 AD) quotes the Vetus Latina version of Matthew 5:44, ōrāte prō persecūtōribus vestrīs (“pray for those who persecute you”), where the Vulgate has a participle instead.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed mainly Christian: the TLL notes that pagan authors use it only rarely, and that the poets Prudentius and Sidonius Apollinaris have it in verse.^[2] Lactantius uses it in his work on the deaths of the persecutors and in the Divine Institutes, and Jerome and the Vulgate have the same sense.^[5] Beside this it kept the plain sense of “pursuer” in the Historia Augusta, and in the Digest it means a legal prosecutor.^[5] The manuscripts sometimes confuse it with prosecutor.^[2] Medieval Latin kept the sense “persecutor of Christians”,^[6] and British sources use it both for a pursuer and, in law, for a prosecutor.^[7] English borrowed it in the early 15th century, partly through Anglo-French.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian quotes the Vetus Latina's ōrāte prō persecūtōribus vestrīs.^[2][3]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius uses it of the persecutors of Christians.^[5][3]
• 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius writes of suffering sub ēnse persecūtōris (“under the persecutor's sword”).^[5][3]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville remarks that the word is not always meant in a bad sense.^[2][3]
• early 15th century – English borrows it as persecutour.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pursuer.^[5][1][7]
2. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A persecutor, especially of Christians.^[5][1][9][6]
3. (law) A prosecutor, plaintiff.^[5][7]

Related words

• persector
• English persecutor

Usage notes

The glossaries give īnsecūtor as a synonym.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b c 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson