refigo

Forms

refīgō (present infinitive refīgere, perfect active refīxī, supine refīxum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- (“back, un-”) + fīgō (“to fasten”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces fīgō to Proto-Indo-European *dheigw-e/o- or *dhiHgw-e/o-; the older present fīvō kept the regular outcome of /gʷ/ between vowels.^[4] Cognate with Lithuanian díegti (“to plant, sting”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short cite it first from Cicero,^[5][6] who asks in the Philippics whether the tablets that the senate had taken down by its decrees would be fixed up again: num figentur rursus eae tabulae, quas vos decretis vestris refixistis?^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is to unfasten something fixed to a wall or post, especially the bronze tablets of laws, which were taken down to annul them;^[2][5] from this it means to cancel or revoke a law.^[1] Pliny the Elder speaks of spoils fixed to a house that not even a buyer was allowed to take down.^[5] It is also used of detaching other things: Celsus says loose teeth should be pulled out.^[2] The TLL notes that manuscripts confuse it with dēfīgō, reficiō and refringō.^[3] In Church Latin it means to tear loose, unfasten or pull apart.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of taking down tablets of law.^[5][6]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus, of pulling out loose teeth.^[2][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of spoils taken down from a house.^[5][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To unfasten, unfix, take down (something fixed to a wall or post).^[2][5][1]
2. To take down a law, and so to annul or revoke it.^[2][1]
3. To detach, pull out or off.^[2][5]

Related words

• fīgō
• affīgō
• dēfīgō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b 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 f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson