repugnans

Forms

repugnāns (genitive repugnantis); third-declension one-termination adjective^[1][2]

Etymology

Used as an adjective, it is the present participle from Latin repugnō (“to fight back, resist; to be inconsistent”).^[1][3] The TLL treats it under the verb.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first adjectival use is in Cicero's De finibus, in the sense contradictory, inconsistent: nothing, he argues, is so inconsistent as to hold two incompatible views at once.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Cicero also uses the neuter plural repugnantia, with consequentia and antecedentia, as a term of dialectic for things that contradict each other.^[1] Quintilian warns against contradictions in a narrative and divides proofs into necessary, credible and not inconsistent ones.^[1] Terentianus Maurus uses it for refractory, obstinate, and of metrical feet for differing or contrary: the dactyl is the opposite of the anapaest in the order of its syllables.^[1] Köbler records it in Lactantius.^[4]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for inconsistent, and the neuter plural for contradictions.^[1]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian warns against contradictions in a narrative.^[1]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius uses it.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Refractory, obstinate.^[1]
2. Contradictory, inconsistent.^[1][3]
3. (neuter plural as a noun) Contradictions, inconsistencies.^[1]
4. Differing, contrary.^[1]

Related words

• repugnō
• repugnantia
• pugnō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de