reprobatio

Forms

reprobātiō f (genitive reprobātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin reprobō (“to reject, condemn”), with the suffix -tiō of action nouns.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in prose in Tertullian,^[2] meaning rejection or disapproval.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

It was a word of Christian Latin.^[4] The Vulgate uses it in the Letter to the Hebrews for the setting aside of an earlier commandment,^[4][6] and the rhetorician Julius Rufinianus uses it as the term for the figure that rejects a point as out of the question.^[5] In medieval Latin it came to mean blame or censure, the eternal damnation of the rejected as the opposite of predestination, and in law a counter-proof or refutation.^[7][6][8] English took it over as reprobation about 1400.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it for rejection.^[4][2][3]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome's Vulgate has it in the Letter to the Hebrews.^[4][3]
• 1342 – A French court decision uses it for a refutation in a lawsuit.^[6]
• c. 1400 – Borrowed into English as reprobation.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Rejection, reprobation, disapproval.^[4][5][10]
2. (rhetoric) The rejection of a point as not even worth considering.^[5]
3. (Medieval Latin) Blame, censure.^[7]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Eternal damnation;^[7][11][8] God's rejection of a person.^[7][11][8]
5. (Medieval Latin, law) A counter-proof, refutation.^[7][6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c d du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
7. ^ a b c d e Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b c Schütz, Ludwig (1895), Thomas-Lexikon, 2nd ed., Paderborn: F. Schöningh
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
11. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press