progressio

Forms

prōgressiō f (genitive prōgressiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prōgredior (“to go forward”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero uses it first, eleven times, mostly in his philosophical works;^[3][4] in the speech for the Manilian law it is a forward advance of soldiers.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Cicero liked the word for progress and growth: everything begins small and grows by its progressions, and he speaks of a progress towards virtue.^[5][2] In rhetoric he names with it a figure of speech, perhaps a climax of ever stronger expressions.^[2] After Cicero it is missing from poetry and reappears in Terentianus Maurus, the Old Latin Bible, Irenaeus and often in Marius Victorinus.^[3]

In Medieval Latin it was used of the march of an army,^[6] and in astronomy of the direct motion of a planet through the signs of the zodiac, as opposed to its standing still and retrogradation.^[6] Wiktionary also gives the mathematical sense of an arithmetic progression.^[1] English progression comes from it, partly through Old French.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of advance and progress.^[2][3][4]
• 7th century – The Visigothic law uses it.^[4]
• 1319 – An English chronicle uses it of a march against Scotland.^[6]
• late 14th century – English progression is first recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A forward movement, advance.^[2][5]
2. progress, development, growth.^[2][5][1]
3. (rhetoric) A figure of speech, perhaps a climax.^[2]
4. (Medieval Latin, astronomy) The direct motion of a planet.^[6]
5. (mathematics) A progression, an arithmetic progression.^[1]

Related words

• prōgressus
• English progression

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com