remigro

Forms

remigrō (present infinitive remigrāre, perfect active remigrāvī, supine remigrātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- (“back”) + migrō (“to move, change one's home”).^[2][3][1][4] De Vaan takes migrō to be probably a verb made from an adjective Proto-Indo-European *h2mi-gw-ro- (“changing”), the stem of Ancient Greek ἀμείβω (ameíbō, “to change”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[4] who uses it both of going back home and of coming back to the plot of the play.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

In Plautus' Epidicus a character feels his courage come back (remigrat animus).^[6][7] Lucretius uses it of returning to a place,^[5] Caesar of people who had moved back to their villages across the Rhine,^[5][7] and Cicero of moving back into one's own house; he also uses it figuratively of a return to justice and, in the Academica, of going back from the new school of philosophy to the old.^[2][5] Apuleius uses it of the soul returning to the gods.^[6]

Manuscripts confuse it with rēmigō “to row”.^[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means to wander back, return.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of going home and of returning to a topic.^[2][5][9]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of returning to a place.^[5][9]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of moving house and of returning to justice.^[2][9]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of the soul returning to the gods.^[6][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To move back to one's old home, go back, return.^[2][5]
2. (figurative) To return to a topic, a way of life or a state of mind.^[2][6]

Related words

• migrō

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. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de