pertundo

Forms

pertundō (present infinitive pertundere, perfect active pertudī, supine pertūsum); third conjugation^[1] The participle is pertūsus, also pertussus and, in Aurelius Victor, pertunsus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin per- (“through”) + tundō (“to beat, thrust”).^[4][3][1] De Vaan traces tundō to Proto-Italic *(s)tund-(e/o-) (“to thrust”) and the nasal present Proto-Indo-European *(s)tu-n-d- (“to thrust”).^[5] Cognate with Sanskrit तुदति (tudáti, “thrusts”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[5] but Lewis & Short cite lines of Ennius' Annals of a spear piercing a side.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to bore a hole through or perforate: Cato tells the farmer to bore a vine with an auger and a cup through its bottom, Lucretius says that drops pierce rocks, and Juvenal tells the moth to eat through books.^[2] Vitruvius uses it of drilling holes.^[4] Plautus has it of a purse and, in a proverb, of pouring into a pierced jar, that is, labouring in vain.^[2] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly ante-classical and absent from Cicero and Caesar.^[2] Etymonline derives English pierce (c. 1300) from Old French percier, probably from a Vulgar Latin verb made from its participle pertūsus.^[6]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius of a spear piercing a side.^[2][7]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of boring a vine with an auger.^[2][7]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a pierced purse and of a pierced jar.^[2][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of drops piercing rocks.^[2][7]
• c. 1300 – English pierce, probably from a Vulgar Latin verb made from its participle.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bore a hole through, perforate, pierce; to drill holes.^[4][2][1]

Word family

• pertusura
• transpertusus

Related words

• tundō
• English pierce

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de