- Confidence
- Established
- Formation
- Derivation
- First attested
- Horace
- Ultimate origin
- Latin (surgō)
Pronunciation
Forms
resurgō (present infinitive resurgere, perfect active resurrēxī, supine resurrēctum); third conjugation, no passive[1]
Etymology
It is from re- “again” and surgō “to rise”.[2][1][3]
Earliest recorded meaning
The OLD's earliest citations are from Horace, of rising again, and Ovid, of getting up again.[2] Köbler dates Horace 65–8 BC.[4]
Semantic evolution
Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan, used once by Livy with velut.[3] It meant to get up again, as in Horace and Ovid, and in Tacitus to take up arms again.[2][5] It meant to rise again, above the horizon, of plants to spring up again, of fire to flare up, of the moon to wax, and in Virgil of a city to rise again from destruction, and of feelings to revive.[2]
In Ecclesiastical Latin it meant to rise again, rise from the dead.[6] Its noun resurrēctiō gave English resurrection about 1300, of Christ's rising, and Old French resourdre “to rise again”, from it, is the source of English resource.[7] It survives in Italian risorgere.[1]
Timeline
- 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of rising again.[2][4]
- 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a city rising again.[2][4]
- 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of renewed war.[2][4]
- c. 1300 – English resurrection is recorded.[7]
Meanings
Verb
- To get up again; to take up arms again.[2]
- To rise again; of plants, to spring up again.[2]
- Of a city, to be restored.[2]
- To revive.[2]
- (Ecclesiastical Latin) To rise from the dead.[6]
Word family
- resurrēctiō
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
- ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
- ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
Cite this entry
“Resurgo.” Etymologically, 16 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/resurgo. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.
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