prognatus

Forms

prōgnātus (feminine prōgnāta, neuter prōgnātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prō- + gnātus (“born”), with the old form of nātus.^[2][3] The TLL calls it an old verbal adjective, comparing Sanskrit प्रजात (prajāta-, “born”), that came to serve as the participle of prōgignō (“to beget”).^[4] The participle goes back to Proto-Italic *gnāto- (“born; son”) and Proto-Indo-European *ǵnh₁-to- (“born”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in verse in the epitaphs of the Scipios, where Scipio Barbatus is called Gnaivōd patre prōgnātus, "born of his father Gnaeus".^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

It means born or descended from someone, of children and of more remote descendants.^[4][2][1] The TLL counts it some fourteen times in Plautus but rarely elsewhere: in Naevius, Ennius, Terence, Catullus, Horace's satires and Commodian, and in prose only in a few places, from the Lex Antonia de Termessibus on, in Caelius, Livy and others.^[4] It seems to have belonged to a raised style, as its use in jokes also suggests.^[4] Naevius has a king born of Dryas and Apollo born of Jupiter, Plautus the son of Thetis, Terence a woman of good family, and Livy calls Romulus a god born of a god.^[4] It is also spelled prōnātus.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius of a king and of Apollo.^[4][3]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, who uses it most often.^[4][3]
• 190–159 BC – Terence.^[4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of Romulus.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Born, descended, sprung (from parents or ancestors).^[4][2][1]

Related words

• nāscor
• nātus
• prōgignō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill