persuasio

Forms

persuāsiō f (genitive persuāsiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin persuādeō (“to convince”) + -tiō.^[2][1] De Vaan lists persuādeō with suādeō (“to recommend, advise”) among the derivatives of suāvis (“sweet”): suādeō is a causative, Proto-Italic *swādeje- (“to render agreeable”), and its sense “recommend” grew out of “make sweet, make agreeable”.^[3] He traces the adjective to Proto-Indo-European *sweh₂d-u- (“sweet”) and compares Ancient Greek ἡδύς (hēdús, “sweet, pleasant”) and Sanskrit स्वादु (svādú-, “sweet”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Rhetorica ad Herennium has it first, among the excuses a defending counsel may fall back on: ignorance, folly, force, persuasion.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

It is persuasion to a course of action and the act of making someone believe something: Cicero defines the orator's task as speaking suitably for persuasion.^[2][6] Quintilian uses it of persuasiveness.^[2] From Seneca on it is also the result, a firm belief or conviction: Seneca writes of overturning a wrong conviction of the mind, and Tacitus of a popular belief that the shapes of horses can be seen.^[2][6] The TLL finds it in prose in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, in Cicero's De inventione and in Seneca and later writers, and in verse only in Prudentius and Marius Victor.^[4] In Church Latin it is conviction, belief or doctrine.^[7]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – the Rhetorica ad Herennium of persuasion to an act.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of persuasion as the aim of oratory.^[2][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca the Younger of a conviction of the mind.^[2][5]
• late 14th century – English persuasion is borrowed from it, partly through French.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Persuasion, inducement; the act of convincing.^[2][6][1]
2. Persuasiveness.^[2]
3. A firm belief, conviction; a popular belief; a false notion.^[2][6][7][1]

Related words

• persuādeō
• suādeō
• English persuasion

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com