praedator

Forms

praedātor m (genitive praedātōris, feminine praedātrīx); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin praedor (“to plunder”) + -tor.^[2][1][3] The verb comes from praeda (“booty”), which de Vaan, following Livingston, takes from Proto-Italic *prai-χod-ā- (“booty”), a compound with the root of prehendō (“to seize”); the older explanation starts from ⟨*prai-χed-ā-⟩ “what one acquires”.^[4] He traces the root to Proto-Indo-European *gʰ(e)nd- (“to grab”), and compares Ancient Greek χανδάνω (khandánō, “to grab”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[4][3] meaning a plunderer: in the Pseudolus a character says nihil est praedae praedatoribus, “the plunderers get no booty”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Classical prose it means a plunderer or pillager: Cicero, in the speeches against Catiline, ranks a group of men among plunderers and despoilers, and Sallust describes an army that plundered its own allies.^[5] Poets used it of a hunter, as Ovid's praedator aprorum, “hunter of boars”, and of an animal that goes after prey, as the bird of Jupiter setting down a hare.^[5][2] The Romance languages kept it as Italian predatore, Old French preeur and Old Occitan preador.^[3]

In Ecclesiastical Latin it also meant a greedy person.^[6] Alcuin, in a letter of 802, complains that the emperor has fewer helpers of justice than plunderers, and British writers used it of the Vikings.^[7] The New Latin Predatores of Swainson (1840) was a group of beetles that eat other insects, and English took predator for an animal that preys on others in 1862.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of plunderers.^[2][9]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of plunderers and despoilers.^[5][9]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust describes an army that plunders its allies.^[5][9]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a hunter and of a bird of prey.^[2][5][9]
• 802 – Alcuin contrasts helpers of justice and plunderers in a letter.^[7]
• 1840 – Swainson names a group of beetles Predatores.^[8]
• 1862 – English predator, an animal that preys on others.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A plunderer, pillager, robber.^[2][5]
2. (poetic) A hunter; an animal that goes after prey; a ravisher.^[2][5]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A greedy person.^[6]
4. (Medieval Latin) A raider, used of the Vikings.^[7]

Word family

• praedātōrius

Related words

• English predator

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c 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 e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c 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
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de