praestringo

Forms

praestringō (present infinitive praestringere, perfect active praestrīnxī, supine praestrictum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- + stringō (“to bind, tighten”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan thinks stringō merges the verbs Proto-Indo-European *stri-n-g- (“to brush, strip”) and Proto-Indo-European *strengʰ-e/o- (“to draw, tie”), and puts this compound with the sense to tie, from the second.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus.^[4] In the OLD's earliest quotations Plautus has a splendour that dazzles the eyes and men whose tongues blunt the edge of swords at home.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its basic sense is to tie up at the ends or tightly: Cato warns not to tie a vine too tight, and Pliny the Elder uses it of something that thickens and so constricts and strangles.^[2] It is also to graze or touch lightly, as a machine in Vitruvius, and with ⟨aciem⟩ to blunt an edge: Pliny has the edge of iron dulled.^[2] With ⟨aciem oculōrum⟩ or ⟨oculōs⟩ it is to dazzle, from Plautus and Lucilius to Livy's lightning.^[2][6] Cicero uses it of the mind: a gesture that might dull the edge of a man's wit.^[2] Quintilian has praise eclipsed by the brilliance of virtues.^[2] The TLL finds it once or twice each in Plautus, Caecilius, Cato, Lucilius, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Varro and Ovid, and more often in Cicero, Seneca and Pliny.^[3] Church Latin glosses it to bind up.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of dazzling the eyes.^[2][5]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of tying a vine.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of dulling the mind.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of dazzling lightning.^[2][5]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of eclipsed praise.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tie up tightly or at the ends; to constrict.^[2][6][1][7]
2. To graze, touch lightly; to touch on briefly.^[2][1]
3. To blunt an edge; to dazzle the eyes; to dull the mind; to eclipse.^[2][6]

Word family

• praestīgia
• praestrictiō

Related words

• stringō

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 l m n o 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. ^ 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 e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson