postmodo

Forms

postmodo (adverb; also written separately, post modo)^[1][2] A variant postmodum is also common.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin post (“after”) + modo (“just, only”).^[1][3] The TLL reports Skutsch's view that the preposition post first went with the uninflected adverb modo, which was later remade as an accusative ⟨modum⟩ after admodum.^[3] De Vaan derives modo from modus (“measure”), from Proto-Italic *medo- (“measure, judgement”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler finds it first in Terence, and Lewis & Short cite a single passage of his Hecyra.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

It means at a later time, afterwards or presently.^[1][6] Lewis & Short call it mostly poetic, used by Livy for postea, and absent from Plautus, Cicero, Caesar and Quintilian, though Asinius Pollio has it in a letter to Cicero.^[2]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it.^[2][5]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius uses it.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it for postea.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adverb

1. Afterwards, later; presently, shortly.^[1][2][6]

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