Etymologically
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remigro

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈrɛ.mɪ.ɡroː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈrɛː.mi.ɡro][1]

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]

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