scansio

Forms

scānsiō f (genitive scānsiōnis); third declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin scandō + -tiō, from the verb meaning “to climb”.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Varro, in the De lingua Latina, uses it for the act of climbing, of a low step by which people got up onto a bed.^[1][3]

Semantic evolution

Vitruvius applied it to the gradual rise in pitch of the voice.^[1][3] In the late grammarians it became the technical term for reading a verse by its metrical feet, scansion: Diomedes, Donatus' life of Virgil and Servius use it so.^[3][2][4]

Medieval writers kept both senses: Aldhelm and Bede speak of the scansio of feet and of heroic verse, and an English gloss renders it as climbing.^[5]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it for climbing onto a bed.^[1][6]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of the rising pitch of sounds.^[1][6]
• 2nd half of the 4th century AD – Diomedes uses it for the scanning of verse.^[2][4][6]
• c. 400 AD – Servius uses the plural.^[2][6]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm writes of the scansio of metrical feet.^[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of climbing.^[1][3]
2. (transferred) A gradual rise in pitch of the voice; a rising scale of sounds.^[1][4]
3. (grammar) The scansion of verse, its division into metrical feet.^[3][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
5. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de