Etymologically
Log in

pinguesco

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 15:13. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Forms

pinguēscō (present infinitive pinguēscere); third conjugation, no passive, no perfect or supine stems[1] No perfect forms are attested.[2] A spelling pinguīscō occurs in the Old Latin Psalms and in Venantius Fortunatus.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin pinguis (“fat”) + -ēscō, an inchoative verb.[4][5][2][1] De Vaan rejects the etymologies proposed so far for pinguis and finds it semantically most attractive to connect it with Proto-Indo-European *piH- (“to increase, be abundant”), the root of Lithuanian píenas (“milk”);[6] Latin ⟨pin-⟩ could then come from an n-stem, but the element ⟨-gui-⟩ remains unexplained.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan records it from Lucretius on,[6] who says that hemlock often fattens bearded goats, pinguēscere saepe cicūtā barbigerās pecudēs.[4] The TLL finds it once each in Lucretius, Virgil and Ovid, and then from Seneca's prose on.[2]

Semantic evolution

Virgil uses it of the plains of Haemus grown rich twice with “our blood”, and Ovid of fattening a body on another body.[4][5] Columella has lean cattle fattening on lucerne, and Pliny the Elder uses it widely: of a fish that grows to a thousand pounds through idleness, of fields made fertile, of wine that gains body with age, of walnuts that grow oily, and of a stone that takes on an oily sheen when polished.[4][5] In Silius Italicus flames grow stronger, and Martial has hair glossy with balm.[4][5]

Grammarians used it of sounds: one of a letter that sounds full in pronunciation, Sergius of the Aeolic Greeks adding a digamma to some words.[4][5] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means to grow fat and to become fertile.[7]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of goats fattening on hemlock.[4][8]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of fields enriched with blood.[4][8]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a body fattened on flesh.[4][8]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of fish, fields, wine and stones.[4][8]
  • 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus uses it of flames.[4][8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To grow fat.[4][5]
  2. Of land, to grow rich or fertile; of wine, to gain body.[4][5]
  3. To become oily; to take on a sheen.[4][5]
  4. (poetic) Of flames, to grow stronger.[5][3]
  5. (grammar) Of a sound, to become full; to be aspirated.[4][5]

Word family

  • compinguesco

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de