praeuro

Forms

praeūrō (present infinitive praeūrere, perfect active praeussī, supine praeustum); third conjugation^[1] Virgil scans the first syllable short.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- (“before, in front”) + ūrō (“to burn”).^[2][1][3] The verb ūrō goes back to Proto-Italic *ouse/o- (“to burn”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₁eus-e/o- (“to burn”).^[4] Cognate with Sanskrit ओषति (oṣati, “to burn, scorch”) and Ancient Greek εὕω (heúō, “to singe”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest example is in Cato, who tells the farmer to cover a planting with straw in winter so that it is not nipped by the frost;^[2][3] the manuscripts there confuse it with perūrō.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means to burn at the tip or on the surface,^[2][3] and Lewis and Short note that it is classical but not in Cicero, and frequent in the perfect participle.^[5] Caesar describes stakes sharpened and burnt at the top, stipites ab summo praeacuti et praeusti, and Virgil fighting with fire-hardened stakes, sudibusve praeustis.^[2][5] Livy has a spear tipped with iron or hardened by fire, and Tacitus fire-hardened weapons.^[2][5] Columella uses it of a scorched vine.^[2] Cold was said to burn as well: Livy uses it of frostbitten limbs, and Pliny the Elder of limbs nipped by the snow in crossing the Alps.^[2][5][6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of frost damage to a plant.^[2][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of stakes burnt at the tip.^[2][5][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil has sudibusve praeustis.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of a fire-hardened spear and of frostbitten limbs.^[2][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of limbs frostbitten in the Alps.^[2][5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To burn at the end or on the surface; of weapons, to harden at the point in fire.^[2][5][3]
2. To scorch, parch.^[2][5]
3. Of cold: to nip at the extremities, frostbite.^[2][5][6]

Related words

• ūrō
• perūrō
• adūrō

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 o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de