praeseco

Forms

praesecō (present infinitive praesecāre, perfect active praesecuī, supine praesectum or praesecātum); first conjugation^[1] Varro uses the form praesicō, and Apuleius the participle praesecātus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- + secō (“to cut”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces secō to Proto-Italic *sekaje/o- and Proto-Indo-European *sekh₁-ie/o- (“to cut off”).^[4] Cognate with Umbrian prusekatu (“to cut out”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Caesar, Varro and Horace on, though the noun praesegmen is already in Plautus.^[3] Caesar tells of citizens who made torsion engines from the cut-off hair of all the women.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means to cut off the end or a projecting part: Varro has part of a honeycomb cut off with a knife, and Vitruvius the projecting ends of beams cut back.^[2][5] Ovid says the hero should have cut off the wounded part with a sure hand,^[2] and Statius has the Gorgon with her neck cut through.^[2] Varro explains the name of a cabbage, praesica, from the stalk being cut bit by bit.^[2][5] It is also to cut or slit: Seneca has a man who cut his own throat.^[2]

The figure praesectum ad unguem in Horace's Ars Poetica, “trimmed to the nail”, is a disputed reading; many editors print perfectum.^[2][5]

Timeline

• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of women's hair cut off.^[2][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of honeycombs and of cabbage.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of cutting off a wounded limb.^[2][6]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus uses it of a navel cord cut too short.^[3][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut away the end of, cut at the end; to cut off (a projecting part).^[2][5]
2. To cut or slit (at the surface or an extremity).^[2][7]

Word family

• praesegmen

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 m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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 c d 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
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn