praefluo

Forms

praefluō (present infinitive praefluere); third conjugation, no perfect or supine stems^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- (“in front, past”) + fluō (“to flow”).^[2][3][1] fluō goes back to Proto-Italic *flow-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰleuH- (“to flow over”).^[4] De Vaan compares Ancient Greek φλύω (phlúō, “to seethe, boil over”) and Lithuanian bliáuti (“to bleat, sob”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Horace and Livy:^[3] Horace has the waters that flow past fertile Tibur, and Livy the Tiber flowing past at the bottom of a valley.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is used of rivers and other water, either intransitively, to flow past, or with an accusative, to flow past a place.^[2][6] Horace has the Aufidus flowing past the realms of Daunus, Pliny the Elder the same river flowing past Canusium, and Tacitus a river flowing past a camp and the Danube past the province of Noricum.^[2][7][6] Columella advises building a farmhouse above a river that flows past, Tacitus has a river with an uncertain ford, and Florus waters at a strait that seemed to sing along with pipes and lyres.^[2][5] An inscription uses it of water in a pipe.^[7]

Lewis and Short call it rare and perhaps not older than Augustus.^[7] In the manuscripts it is often confused with perfluō and prōfluō.^[3]

Timeline

• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of the waters that flow past Tibur.^[2][8]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of the Tiber.^[2][8]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of a river below a farmhouse.^[2][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of the Aufidus.^[2][8]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of a river flowing past a camp.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To flow in front, flow past.^[2][7]
2. (transitive) To flow in front of or past (a place).^[2][6]

Word family

• praefluus

Related words

• fluō
• prōfluō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de