saepio

Forms

saepiō (present infinitive saepīre, perfect active saepsī, supine saeptum); fourth conjugation^[1] Manuscripts often spell it sēp-.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a verb from saepēs (“hedge, fence”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan derives ⟨saepēs⟩ from Proto-Italic *saip-i-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂-i- (“to tie”), though a suffix ⟨*-p-⟩ is unknown; he compares Umbrian seples (“nails”) and Ancient Greek αἰπύς (aipús, “steep”), and derives saepe (“often”) from the same word, “closely packed” becoming “often”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4] who has “so long as you don't make a path across a fenced estate”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to fence in or enclose, also of natural barriers, as Cicero's tomb of Archimedes, fenced and overgrown with briars.^[2] In war it is to invest a town with siegeworks or surround with troops: Cicero asks why the senate was surrounded by a ring of armed men.^[2] Lucretius uses it of surrounding a glade with hunting nets.^[2] It is also to close off a road or exit, and to protect with walls or guards; figuratively one is fenced in by the laws and the fear of the courts.^[2] To envelop it is used of the mind of Jupiter enclosed in the caverns of the ether, and in Ennius someone leaves his kingdom clothed in a beggar's robe.^[2]

Church Latin has it for “hedge or enclose in”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a fenced estate.^[2][6]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of clothing.^[2][6]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of hunting nets.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of siegeworks and armed guards.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To surround with a hedge or fence, enclose.^[2][3][1][5]
2. To surround with siegeworks, troops or nets, invest.^[2]
3. To shut in, confine; to close off a road or exit.^[2][1]
4. To protect by surrounding with walls or guards.^[2]
5. To envelop, wrap; to clothe.^[2][1]

Word family

• circumsaepiō
• cōnsaepiō
• dissaepiō
• insaepiō
• insaeptus
• intersaepiō
• obsaepiō
• praesaepiō
• saepīmen
• saepīmentum
• saeptiō

Related words

• saepēs
• saeptum
• saepe

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de