raresco

Forms

rārēscō, rārēscere (third conjugation, intransitive; no perfect recorded)^[1][2] The OLD prints rārescō.^[3] Some later manuscripts spell it rari-.^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin rārus (“loose, sparse, rare”) + -ēscō, an inchoative verb.^[3][4][1] De Vaan counts it among the derivatives of rārus, the opposite of dēnsus (“dense”), whose origin is unclear: a link with Proto-Indo-European *h₂erH- (“to disappear, perish”) is not obvious in meaning, and Schrijver rejects every proposal.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the OLD record it first in Lucretius,^[5][3] who uses it of matter loosening and of clouds thinning out: cum rarescunt quoque nubila caeli, “when the clouds of the sky also thin out”.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The first meaning is physical: something dense or solid loosens and opens out, as earth under heat in Lucretius,^[4][2] or the narrow barriers of Pelorus in Virgil, which will one day open wider.^[3][6] Propertius uses it of a sound that grows fainter on a quiet shore.^[3][7] It then meant “become sparse”: wool and hair thin out on old animals in Pliny the Elder,^[3] and a vineyard grows thin when its trees die in Columella.^[3] Statius says the crowded walls of Rome were emptying,^[6][7] and Tacitus that hills gradually fall away.^[2][6] In later Latin it became more general, “grow rarer, decline”: Tertullian sets iustitia rarescit against iniquitas increbrescit, and Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of poisoners who were becoming rarer.^[2] Glossaries explain it as “they become rare or few”.^[1]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of clouds and earth thinning out.^[3][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of a strait opening out.^[3][8]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius, of a sound growing fainter.^[3][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of wool and hair growing sparse.^[3][8]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian, of justice growing rare.^[2][8]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus, of poisoners becoming fewer.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To become less dense or solid, to loosen, thin out; to open out, widen.^[3][4]
2. Of sound, to grow fainter.^[3][6]
3. To become sparse or fewer; of places, to become less crowded; of hills, to fall away.^[3][2][6]
4. (Late Latin) To grow rarer, decline.^[2]

Related words

• rārus
• rārō
• dēnsus

Usage notes

Lewis & Short note that it is poetic and post-Augustan prose.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de