Etymologically
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solo

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Forms

sōlō (present infinitive sōlāre, perfect active sōlāvī, supine sōlātum); first conjugation[1][2]

Etymology

It is a verb from Latin sōlus (“alone”).[1][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Seneca, at the opening of the Oedipus, speaks of houses left empty by the plague.[3][5][6]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant to strip a place of its inhabitants and leave it deserted.[1][2] Lewis and Short note that it occurs only a few times, in the poets after Augustus:[2] besides Seneca, Statius uses it of cities emptied of their peoples and of deserted houses, and Valerius Flaccus of a ship left empty.[3][7]

Timeline

  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca writes of houses emptied by the plague.[3][5][6]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius, in the Thebaid, uses it of cities and houses.[2][3][6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To depopulate, to leave a place deserted or desolate.[1][2][7]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.