profugus

Forms

profugus (feminine profuga, neuter profugum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from profugiō (“to flee, escape”) with the ending ⟨-us⟩.^[2][3][1] The verb is prō- (“forth”) and fugiō (“to flee”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Italic *fug-i- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰug-i- (“to flee”), cognate with Ancient Greek φεύγω (pheúgō, “to flee”).^[4] Servius, commenting on the second line of Virgil's epic, says it properly means one who wanders far from his home, “as if driven far away”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Plautus as the first author of the adjective and Sallust of the noun;^[5] Sallust has Jugurtha's soldiers “fleeing” when the enemy pressed harder.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is fleeing, fugitive, and as a noun a fugitive or runaway, as in Statius.^[2][6] In poetry it is said of things that slip from one's grasp, as Seneca's water that turns away from Tantalus' mouth, and figuratively of one shrinking from a task, as in Apuleius.^[2] It is also one who has fled his country or home, exiled, as Sallust's Trojans “wandering with no fixed home”, and as a noun an exile or refugee, as in Ovid's Tristia.^[2][6][1]

Lewis and Short note it is not in Cicero or Caesar.^[6] Church Latin glosses it “fleeing, wandering, unsettled” and as a noun “fugitive, refugee”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.^[5]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust of fleeing soldiers and of the wandering Trojans.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of an exile.^[2][5]
• c. 400 AD – Servius explains it on the Aeneid.^[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Fleeing, fugitive;^[2][6][1][7] (poetic) eluding one's grasp; shrinking (from a task).^[2][6][1][7]
2. Exiled, banished; wandering, roving.^[2][6][1][7]

Noun

1. A fugitive, runaway; an exile, refugee.^[2][6][7]

Word family

• profuga

Related words

• profugiō
• fugiō
• fuga
• perfuga
• trānsfuga

Usage notes

Döderlein notes that perfuga and trānsfuga are deserters who go over from one side to the other, the perfuga as a traitor to his own side, the trānsfuga as a waverer.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 c 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 d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper