persulto

Forms

persultō (present infinitive persultāre, perfect active persultāvī, supine persultātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- (“through”) + saltō (“to dance, leap”).^[2][3] De Vaan lists it, with a first use in Lucretius, among the derivatives of saliō¹ (“to jump”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *sal-je- (“to jump”) and Proto-Indo-European *sh₂l-ie/o- (“to jump”), though he regards the reconstruction of the root as uncertain.^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek ἅλλομαι (hállomai, “to jump”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the TLL give Lucretius as its first author;^[4][3] the TLL counts one use in him.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short note that it is not used by Cicero or Caesar.^[5] In verse it occurs in Lucretius once, Silius Italicus five times and Avienus four times; in prose Livy has it twice, Seneca twice and Tacitus six times.^[3] It means to leap or prance about, as in Livy's two armed men who leapt about as if on solid ground, or to leap over something.^[2][5] Livy and Tacitus also use it of troops who range freely over an area or scour it: in Livy a people remember how often the others had ranged unpunished over their land.^[2][5] Seneca has it of leaping over pools hardened with ice.^[5]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it once.^[4][3][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of prancing and of ranging over land.^[2][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it six times.^[3][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To leap or prance about;^[2][5][1] (transitive) to leap or prance over.^[2][5][1]
2. To range freely over an area; to scour.^[2][5]

Word family

• persultator

Related words

• saltō
• saliō¹
• exsultō
• īnsultō
• resultō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d 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 c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de