praecingo

Forms

praecingō (present infinitive praecingere, perfect active praecīnxī, supine praecīnctum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- + cingō (“to gird”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan calls the origin of cingō uncertain: he sets up Proto-Italic *keng- and finds no convincing outside cognate.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus.^[4] In the OLD's earliest quotation Plautus has a boy sitting in a chair at school girt with a little belt.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to encircle with a belt, gird, mostly in the passive; to be girt up meant one's clothes were tied up for action, as in Plautus.^[2][6] The TLL counts one or two uses each in Plautus, Ennius, Varro, Cicero, Horace and Propertius, and nine in Ovid.^[3] It is also to surround like a band: Manilius has signs that circle the middle of the sky.^[2] Propertius has Tatius surrounding a spring with a maple palisade.^[2] Martial has ego tē praecingere possum, I can gird you.^[6] Church Latin glosses it to gird.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a boy girt with a belt.^[2][4][5]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius of a spring ringed with a palisade.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Manilius of signs circling the sky.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To gird, encircle with a belt; in the passive, to have one's clothes girt up.^[2][6][1][7]
2. To surround like a band, encircle.^[2][1]
3. To surround with a border, encompass.^[2]

Word family

• praecinctiō
• praecinctorium
• praecinctūra
• praecinctus

Related words

• cingō

References

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