pulto

Forms

pultō (present infinitive pultāre, perfect active pultāvī, supine pultātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pellō (“to push, drive”) + -tō, a frequentative.^[2][1] De Vaan takes it, together with Venetic poltos (“moved”), as evidence for an original participle Proto-Italic *polto- of the simple verb, which pulsus replaced; the frequentative was itself replaced by the newer pulsō.^[3][2] The TLL notes that it has no compounds because the commoner verb pushed it aside.^[4] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pl-n(e)-h₂- (“to approach”), with a shift of sense from bringing something near to pushing it.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is an early Latin word,^[5] found in Plautus, who uses it above all of knocking at a door: placide pulta, “knock gently”.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Plautus and Terence use it with ianuam, fores, ostium and aedes, or absolutely,^[5][6] and Plautus has pultando paene confregi hasce ambas fores, “I almost broke both these doors with knocking”, and pectus digitis pultat, “beats the breast with the fingers”.^[6][5] Later writers treat it as an old form of pulsāre.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of knocking at doors.^[5][7]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of knocking at a door.^[5][7]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian names it as a word of the ancients.^[4][7]
• first half of the 5th century AD – Macrobius explains it as “to knock often”.^[4][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To knock at (a door, a house).^[2][5]
2. To beat, strike.^[5][6]

Word family

• pultātiō

Related words

• pellō
• pulsō

Usage notes

Quintilian says that the ancients said pultare where later Latin has pulsare.^[4][5] Macrobius reports that some took it for a kind of Atticism, like Attic ⟨ττ⟩ for ⟨σσ⟩, but explains it as “to knock often”.^[4] Pulto was also a Roman surname.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de