plaudo

Forms

plaudō (present infinitive plaudere, perfect active plausī, supine plausum); third conjugation^[1] It is also spelled plōdō.^[2][3]

Etymology

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *plau-d-e/o- (“to clap the hands”) and derives it from Proto-Indo-European *plh₂-u- (“palm of the hand, sole of the foot”);^[4] Oettinger and Meiser take the verb to be formed in Latin from a noun for the palm.^[4] He leaves open whether ⟨au⟩ or ⟨ō⟩ is the older vowel, but the related plautus (“flat-footed”) favours ⟨au⟩.^[4] The OLD calls the origin doubtful.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4] who uses it in the closing request for applause at the end of a play.^[2]

Semantic evolution

As a transitive verb it is to strike with a flat surface, clap or beat, and to pat, as Virgil's horse that should learn to love the sound of a patted neck;^[2][3] plausīs ālīs is with beating wings.^[2][3] Intransitively it is to make a clapping sound, as in Seneca, and above all to clap the hands in applause, as Cicero's complaint that the Roman people use their hands for clapping instead of defending the state.^[2] From this it is to approve or applaud, with a dative.^[2][1] Wiktionary also gives the sense of striking hands to close a bargain.^[1]

Church Latin glosses it “clap, strike, applaud”.^[5] Its compounds include applaudō and explōdō, to drive off the stage by clapping.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus asks the audience to applaud.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of applause in the theatre.^[2][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of patting a horse's neck.^[2][6]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of the sound of clapping.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To strike, beat, clap; to pat; of wings, to beat, flap.^[2][1][5]
2. To make a clapping sound.^[2]
3. To clap the hands, applaud.^[2][1]
4. To express approval, approve.^[2][1]
5. To strike hands to close a bargain.^[1]

Word family

• applaudō
• circumplaudō
• complōdō
• displōdō
• explōdō
• plausibilis
• plausito
• plausor
• plausus
• replaudō
• superplaudo

Related words

• plautus
• English applaud
• English explode
• English plausible

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de