pisto

Forms

pī̆stō (present infinitive pī̆stāre, perfect active pī̆stāvī, supine pī̆stātum); first conjugation^[1] The Latin Oribasius spells it pestare.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin pīnsō (“to pound, crush”), a frequentative formed on ⟨pist-⟩, the stem of its participle.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the veterinary handbook called the Mulomedicina Chironis (4th century AD),^[4] where herbs, roots or quicklime are to be pounded in a mortar.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a word of Late Latin medical and veterinary prose: Vegetius uses it,^[3] and the herbal ascribed to Apuleius often prescribes a herb pounded with lard or with vinegar.^[2][3] The TLL notes that it has no frequentative force: it means the same as pīnsō.^[2]

It lives on in pestare and related Romance verbs; the Spanish pistar probably comes from Italian.^[2]

Timeline

• 4th century AD – The Mulomedicina Chironis uses it for pounding herbs in a mortar.^[2][4]
• end of the 4th century AD – The herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius prescribes pounded herbs.^[2][4]
• c. 400 AD – Vegetius uses it in his veterinary work.^[3][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pound, crush (herbs or other ingredients, as in a mortar).^[3][2][1]

Word family

• pistātiō

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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de