populator

Forms

populātor m (genitive populātōris); third declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin populor (“to ravage, plunder”) + -tor.^[1][3] The verb is a derivative of populus¹ (“people”); de Vaan thinks the sense “to devastate” grew out of the use “to have an army pass through”, since the noun goes back to Proto-Italic *poplo- (“army”), whose further origin is unknown.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short think it is perhaps not found before the Augustan age;^[2] it appears in Livy, of ravagers of the fields,^[2][5] and in Ovid,^[2][6] meaning a plunderer or ravager.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Poets extended it to animals and natural forces: Martial calls a boar the ravager of the Tuscan acorn, and Valerius Flaccus calls Sirius the ravager of the Calabrian field.^[2][7] Figuratively it meant a destroyer or consumer, as in Claudian's “luxury, the waster of wealth” and in a declamation attributed to Quintilian, where it is paired with a word for the overthrower of a city.^[2][7] Lucan and Claudian use it in the plural of enemies who lay fields waste.^[8]

British Medieval Latin kept the classical sense, with figurative uses, from Tatwine's riddles on;^[9] Niermeyer records a medieval sense “settler”, a colonist.^[10]

Timeline

• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy speaks of ravagers of the fields.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a destroyer of Troy.^[2][6]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it of a boar.^[2][6]
• 39–65 AD – Lucan uses it of enemies laying fields waste.^[8][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A plunderer, ravager, spoiler.^[1][2]
2. (poetic) An animal or natural force that lays waste.^[2][7]
3. (figurative) A destroyer, waster.^[2][7]
4. (Medieval Latin) A settler, colonist.^[10]

Related words

• populus¹

References

1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill