Etymologically
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radicitus

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Forms

rādīcitus (not comparable)[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin rādīx (“root”) + -itus.[2][1][3] De Vaan traces rādīx to Proto-Italic *wrād-ī- and Proto-Indo-European *ur(e)h₂-d-iH- (“root”), in which the /d/ was probably a suffix.[4] Cognate with Welsh gwraidd (“roots”), Breton gwrizienn (“root”), Old English wyrt, Old Norse rót and Albanian rrëzë (“root”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus,[4][5] who uses it figuratively: omnia malefacta vostra repperī rādīcitus, “I have found out all your misdeeds, root and all”.[6] The OLD's earliest literal example is Cato's advice to dig out all the bad weeds by the roots.[2]

Semantic evolution

Literally it means by the roots, of weeds and plants dug out, a rose bed cut back at the roots in Varro, and a tree torn up in Suetonius.[2][6] Figuratively it means utterly, completely: Cicero speaks of tearing desire out by the roots and of removing religion from men's minds.[6] Ecclesiastical Latin keeps both the literal sense and the sense “radically, utterly”.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, figuratively, “thoroughly”.[6][5]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato, of weeds dug out by the roots.[2][5]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro, of a rose bed cut at the roots.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of desire and religion torn out.[6][5]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. By the roots, roots and all; at the roots.[2][6][1]
  2. (figurative) Utterly, completely, radically.[2][6][1][7]

Word family

  • exrādīcitus

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson