repto

Forms

rēptō (present infinitive rēptāre, perfect active rēptāvī, supine rēptātum); first conjugation, no passive^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin rēpō (“to creep”) + -tō, a frequentative verb.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces the simple verb to Proto-Italic *rēp-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁p- or Proto-Indo-European *h₁rēp-, “to creep”, and compares Lithuanian rėplióti (“to creep”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it in verse from Plautus on.^[5] Plautus has quid in urbe reptās, vīlice haud magnī pretī?, “why are you slinking about in town, overseer of little worth?”, and, in a fragment, maior pars populī āridī reptant fame, of people dragging themselves along, dried up with hunger.^[2][6] Köbler dates Plautus c. 250–184 BC.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it mostly poetic and post-Augustan, and a favourite word of Claudian.^[6] Lucretius uses it of woolly sheep creeping over a hill to the grass, and Horace of strolling silently through the woods.^[2][6] Pliny the Elder uses it of young locusts without legs or wings and of the creeping shoots of the gourd, Statius and Martial of infants crawling, and Gellius of a chameleon.^[2][6] Statius has the passive participle, “crawled over”, of a field.^[2][6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of slinking about.^[2][5][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of sheep.^[2][6][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of strolling in the woods.^[2][6][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of insects and plants.^[2][7]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius uses it of a chameleon.^[2][6][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To crawl, creep (of people, animals, plants).^[2][6][8]
2. (transitive) To crawl over.^[2][6]
3. To move slowly, stroll about, saunter.^[2][3]
4. To slink about;^[2] (of the feeble or blind) to grope one's way.^[2]

Word family

• correpto
• irreptō
• obreptō
• perrēptō
• rēptābundus
• rēptātiō
• reptātus

Related words

• rēpō
• serpō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson