praeripio

Forms

praeripiō (present infinitive praeripere, perfect active praeripuī, supine praereptum); third (-iō variant) conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- (“before”) + rapiō (“to seize”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces rapiō to Proto-Italic *rap-i- (“to seize”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₁rp-i- (“to seize”), comparing Ancient Greek ἐρέπτομαι (eréptomai, “to devour, snatch away”), Albanian rjep (“to tear off, rob”) and Lithuanian ap-rė́pti (“to take, catch”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Casina: “have you come here to snatch my bride from me?”^[2][5][6]

Semantic evolution

It is to snatch something before another can, often with an abstract object, as Caesar has a man arrogantly forestalling a favour of the people.^[2][5] Statius uses it of a foster child snatched away by death before his time.^[2] It is also to do something before another, to anticipate, as Cicero fears to seem to anticipate the gods' favour by haste, and Vitruvius has a voice caught in mid course.^[2] The TLL finds it from Plautus, Terence and Cicero on, but not in Catullus, Sallust, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Lucan or Petronius; manuscripts often confuse it with praerumpō.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of snatching a bride.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of anticipating the gods' favour.^[2][6]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius of a child taken by early death.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To snatch before another, seize first; of death, to snatch away too soon.^[2][5][1]
2. To forestall, anticipate; to do first.^[2][1]
3. To catch in mid course, intercept.^[2]

Word family

• praereptor

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. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de