proripio

Forms

prōripiō (present infinitive prōripere, perfect active prōripuī, supine prōreptum); third (-iō variant) conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prō- + rapiō (“to seize, snatch”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces rapiō to Proto-Italic *rap-i- (“to seize”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₁rp-i- (“to seize”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has a character order a man dragged out by the feet like a slaughtered pig, and another ask where the fellow has rushed off to out of the house.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to snatch out of shelter or hiding, to drag forth: Cicero has a man ordered to be dragged out.^[2][5] With sē it is to rush or burst forth, to hurry away;^[2][5] Ovid's pedēs prōripere is to spring forth on bare feet, and the verb alone can mean the same.^[2][5] Late glosses explain prōripit sē as “goes out in haste”.^[3] Church Latin glosses it to escape, rush forth.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of dragging out and of rushing out.^[2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a man dragged out.^[5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of springing forth.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To snatch or drag forth.^[2][5][1]
2. (with sē) To rush or burst forth, hurry away, escape.^[2][5][1][6]

Related words

• rapiō
• ēripiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 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 f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson