resupino

Forms

resupīnō (present infinitive resupīnāre, perfect active resupīnāvī, supine resupīnātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin resupīnus (“lying on one's back”) + -ō.^[2][3] Wiktionary analyses it instead as re- and supīnō (“to turn upwards”).^[1] De Vaan lists it, with resupīnus and supīnus (“lying face upwards”), among the derivatives of sub (“under”), and takes that adjective as a simple derivative in ⟨-īnus⟩.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan records it first in Terence,^[4] whose Phormio has a speaker caught from behind by the cloak and pulled backwards.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The verb means to bend or turn something backwards.^[6][7] It is used of laying a person or animal on the back, as in Celsus and of polyps in Pliny the Elder, and Juvenal uses it crudely of sexual intercourse;^[2][8] with the idea of violence it is to knock flat or overturn, as in Livy, where a king is struck down with a shield boss as he rises, and in Propertius, where Cynthia flings open the doors.^[2][6]

It also meant to tilt or draw back: Seneca says that people going downhill lean their bodies back, and Pliny that turtle-doves do not throw back their necks when they drink.^[2][5] Reflexively it was a gesture of pride, and Seneca uses it of a haughty man.^[2][5][8] In technical writing it is to make something slope back, as with Vitruvius' stakes, and Quintilian finds it unseemly to push up the nose with the flat of the hand.^[2][6] Lewis and Short call it rare and absent from Cicero.^[6]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of pulling someone backwards.^[2][4][9]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of stakes set sloping.^[2][9]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of knocking a man flat.^[2][9]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of leaning back and of a haughty bearing.^[2][9]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal uses it in a sexual sense.^[2][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lay on the back, lay supine.^[2][6]
2. To knock flat on the back; to overturn, burst open.^[2][7]
3. To bend or tilt back;^[2][5] (reflexive) to throw oneself back in pride.^[2][5]
4. To make slope back; to flatten.^[2]
5. (vulgar) To throw (a woman) on her back.^[2][8][1]

Related words

• resupīnus
• supīnus
• supīnō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de