praegnatio

Forms

praegnātiō f (genitive praegnātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin praegnās + -tiō.^[2][3][4] De Vaan reports Schwyzer's explanation of praegnās (“pregnant”) as an old possessive compound describing a woman whose giving birth still lies before her, built on the root of nāscor (“to be born”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Varro (116–27 BC),^[4][3] who in his work on farming calls conception and birth the first and last limits of pregnancy in animals.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Varro also applies it to plants, of their swelling before they bear.^[2][7][6] Apuleius uses it of women,^[8][3] and the Asclepius ascribed to Apuleius addresses the fertile pregnancy of all natures, the productive power of nature.^[7][8] L&S notes that it is found before and after the Classical period, not in it.^[7]

In Christian writers it is used of the conception of Christ by the Virgin Mary.^[3] Ecclesiastical Latin dictionaries give it simply as “pregnancy”.^[9]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of animals and of plants.^[2][3][4]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of women in the Metamorphoses.^[3][8][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Pregnancy, gestation (of women and animals).^[2][7][3]
2. (of plants) Germination, the swelling before fruit.^[2][6]
3. (figurative) The productive power of nature.^[7][6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson