recepto

Forms

receptō (present infinitive receptāre, perfect active receptāvī, supine receptātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin recipiō (“to take back, receive”) + -tō, a frequentative formed on the participle receptus².^[2][3][4] That verb is a compound of capiō (“to take”), which Wiktionary traces to Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ennius has it first, in the Annals, of the hollow vault of the sky taking something back.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic and post-Augustan, and absent from Cicero and Caesar.^[4] It is to take back or recover: Lucretius has a body slowly coming back to its senses and taking back its breath, Virgil a spear pulled back out of the bones, and Lucan nature taking all things back into her lap.^[2][4] With sē it is to withdraw: Terence has withdrawing into the house, Virgil the star of Saturn retiring, and Persius a shore receding into a bay.^[2][5] It is also to receive often or habitually: Terence has a woman receiving the speaker's son, Livy merchants admitted, Tacitus debtors sheltered, and Apuleius a girl protected in a house.^[2][4][5] Church Latin has “receive, draw back, retire”.^[6]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius, of the sky taking something back.^[2][7]
• 190–159 BC – Terence, of withdrawing and of receiving a visitor.^[2][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of recovering breath.^[2][7]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of sheltering debtors.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take back, recover, pull back.^[2][4][1]
2. (reflexive) To withdraw, retire; of places, to recede.^[2][5]
3. To receive often, admit, shelter.^[2][4][5]

Word family

• receptabilis
• receptāculum
• receptātor
• receptor
• receptrīx

Related words

• recipiō
• receptus²
• capiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de