refluo

Forms

refluō (present infinitive refluere, perfect active reflūxī, supine reflūxum); third conjugation, no passive^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- (“back”) + fluō (“to flow”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces fluō to Proto-Indo-European *bhleuH- (“to flow over”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.^[5] Virgil has it in the Georgics and the Aeneid, where a terrified river flows backwards and the Nile withdraws from the fields.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

Ovid's Maeander “flows back and flows on” in its winding course,^[5][8] and Lucan has rivers flowing back when blocked.^[8][8] Mela and Pliny the Elder use it of the sea ebbing.^[8][2] Valerius Flaccus uses the participle of the Po overflowing its banks.^[8] In law Ulpian uses it of water flowing back onto land from a swamp in flood.^[2] Cassiodorus has it as a transitive verb, to drive back.^[7]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of rivers flowing back.^[5][9]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the winding Maeander.^[5][9]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of the ebbing tide.^[2][9]
• before 223 AD – Ulpian uses it of floodwater returning onto land.^[2][9]
• c. 485–c. 580 AD – Cassiodorus uses it transitively.^[7][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To flow back; of the sea, to ebb.^[2][5]
2. To flow back into a place formerly covered; to overflow.^[2][8]
3. (Late Latin) To drive back.^[7]

Word family

• refluamen
• refluus

Related words

• fluō

References

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