Etymologically
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recurso

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Forms

recursō (present infinitive recursāre); first conjugation, intransitive[1][2] Only forms of the present stem are found.[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin recurrō (“to run back”) + -tō, a frequentative.[1][3][4] That verb is a compound of re- and currō (“to run”),[1][5] which goes back to Proto-Italic *korse/o- and Proto-Indo-European *krs-e/o- (“to run”).[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus is the first to use it, in quid ego huc recursem?, “why should I keep running back here?”[1][2]

Semantic evolution

Lucretius uses it of particles that leap far apart and rebound far (longe longeque recursant).[1][4] From Virgil on it is used figuratively of what keeps coming back to the mind: sub noctem cura recursat, care returns at nightfall, and multa viri virtus animo ... recursat.[4][1][2] Later poets follow him: Seneca of Medea rushing to and fro, and Statius and Silius of cares and images that keep returning,[1] and Tacitus writes recursabant animo vetera omina.[1][4] Terentianus Maurus applies it to metrical feet.[1] The glossaries explain it as “runs more often”.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of running back again and again.[1][7]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of rebounding particles.[1][7]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of cares and memories that keep returning.[1][7]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it in his Medea.[1][7]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of old omens recurring to the mind.[1][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To keep running back, return again and again; to run to and fro.[1][2]
  2. To keep rebounding.[1]
  3. (figurative) To keep recurring to the mind.[1][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de