Etymology and origin of the Latin word procubo
- Confidence
- Established
- Formation
- Derivation
- First attested
- 70–19 BC, Virgil
- Ultimate origin
- Latin cubō
From the same root
Forms
prōcubō (present infinitive prōcubāre, perfect active prōcubāvī, supine prōcubātum); first conjugation[1]
Etymology
It is from Latin prō- + cubō (“to lie down”).[2][1][3][4] The TLL notes that it expresses the result of prōcumbō (“to fall forward, lie prostrate”): to lie stretched out.[3]
Earliest recorded meaning
It is first found in Virgil's Georgics, of the shadow of a rock that stretches out: ubi saxea procubet umbra, “where a rocky shade lies spread”.[3][5][6]
Semantic evolution
It is a rare poetic word.[5] Besides Virgil's spreading shade, Claudian uses it of the god Gradivus lying outstretched on the Getic Haemus: procubat horrendus Getico Gradivus in Haemo.[5][7][8] The grammarian Eutyches lists it with the conjugation -ō, -ās.[3]
Timeline
Meanings
Verb
References
- ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
- ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
- ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
- ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
- ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
Cite this entry
“Procubo.” Etymologically, 21 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/procubo. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.
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