recolo

Forms

recolō (present infinitive recolere, perfect active recoluī, supine recultum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- (“again”) + colō¹ (“to till, inhabit”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces colō¹ to Proto-Italic *kwele/o- and Proto-Indo-European *kwelh1-e/o- (“to go round”).^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek πέλομαι (pélomai, “to move”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Plautus, Cicero, Catullus and Virgil on.^[3] In Plautus' Mercator a man says he will take up his old ways again and serve himself: antiqua recolam et serviam mihi.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to occupy a place again, as in Phaedrus' fable, where no one gladly returns to a place that has hurt him,^[2][6] and to cultivate land afresh, as Livy's deserted land, or to work a mine again.^[2][6] More widely it means to resume a pursuit or practice, to revive or renew something, and to renew the worship of a god, as Statius' yearly feasts that renew the rites.^[2] From going over a thing again it came to mean going over it in the mind, recalling, as in Cicero's Philippics.^[2] The TLL notes that Church writers use it often,^[3] and in Church Latin it means to contemplate, recollect or reflect on, as well as to repair or renew.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of resuming old ways.^[2][3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of going over something in the mind.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of cultivating deserted land again.^[2][6][5]
• c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus, of returning to a place.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To occupy (a place) again; to go over again, retrace.^[2][6]
2. To cultivate (land) again; to work (a mine) again.^[2][6][1]
3. To resume, practise again; to revive, renew.^[2][1]
4. To renew the worship or observance of.^[2]
5. To go over in the mind, recall, reflect upon.^[2][1][7]
6. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To contemplate, recollect.^[7][1]

Related words

• colō¹
• cultus
• incolō

Usage notes

An early printed text of Scribonius Largus has a separate verb recōlō, -āre “to strain again”, an early editor's reading in place of excōlō.^[6][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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
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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson