sedo

Forms

sēdō (present infinitive sēdāre, perfect active sēdāvī, supine sēdātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from the root of sedeō (“to sit”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan notes that it must first have meant “to make someone sit down, appease”, and derives the root from Proto-Italic *sed-ē- (“to be seated”) and Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”).^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest quotations are in Plautus, of thirst relieved by Bacchus and of years of misery soothed by present joy.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to make flames, winds or waters subside, as Cicero's storm that dies down, and intransitively of storms to abate, in the historian Gellius.^[2] Most often it is to reduce the violence of something, to allay or relieve hunger and thirst, feelings, strife or misfortune: the Capitoline Fasti record a dictator appointed to quell a revolt, and Terence asks his audience to remedy a misfortune by their good sense.^[2][3] Of people it is to calm someone down, as Livy's young men whom the magistrates could hardly restrain.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “soothe, calm, appease, allay, still, assuage”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of quenched thirst and soothed misery.^[2][6]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of remedying a misfortune.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a storm that dies down.^[2][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of calming the young men.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make flames, winds or waters subside; of storms, to abate.^[2][1]
2. To Allay, relieve, assuage hunger, feelings, strife or troubles.^[2][3][1][5]
3. To calm down, appease a person.^[2][1]

Word family

• cōnsēdō
• resēdō
• sēdāmen
• sēdātiō
• sedator
• sēdātus
• sēdātīvus

Related words

• sedeō
• sēdēs
• sella
• English sedate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. ^ 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