saucio

Forms

sauciō (present infinitive sauciāre, perfect active sauciāvī, supine sauciātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin saucius (“wounded”) + -ō.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it first: in the Rudens someone asks why he should not wound a man with rods until he has had his fill.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means to wound or hurt a person or body;^[2][3] Lewis & Short call it classical but rare and absent from Caesar.^[2][3] Cicero writes that Rubrius was wounded in the crowd, and Sallust of someone wounded by the blow of a javelin.^[3] It is also used of cutting plants as if wounding them, or of cutting into the ground: Cato warns not to damage the roots.^[2] Stelten gives "wound, hurt, injure" for Church Latin.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of beating with rods.^[2][3]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of damaging roots.^[2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of Rubrius wounded in a crowd.^[3]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust of a javelin wound.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wound, hurt, gash.^[2][3][1][4]
2. To cut, gash (a plant); to cut into, furrow (the ground).^[2][1]

Word family

• cōnsauciō
• sauciātiō

Related words

• saucius
• vulnerō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson