spolio

Forms

spoliō (present infinitive spoliāre, perfect active spoliāvī, supine spoliātum); first conjugation^[1] Ennius uses it once as a deponent, spolior.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin spolium (“hide stripped off; spoils”) + -ō.^[2][1] De Vaan traces the noun to Proto-Italic *spoli(o)- (“skin, hide”) and Proto-Indo-European *spol(H)-i(o)- (“what is split or stripped off”), probably from a root ⟨*(s)pel(H)-⟩ “to split, cleave”; cognates are Ancient Greek σπολάς (spolás, “leather garment”), Lithuanian spãlis (“shive of flax”) and German spalten (“to cleave”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ennius, Annals, of the dead after a battle: spoliantur eōs et corpora nūda relinquunt, “they strip them and leave the bodies naked”.^[2] De Vaan records the active verb from Plautus on.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is stripping someone of clothes (Livy: the consuls order a man stripped and the rods made ready), or a plant of its bark or leaves, and above all stripping a defeated enemy of his arms.^[2] From this it came to mean robbing by violence (Cicero: many outraged, robbed and driven from their property), plundering places such as houses and temples, and depriving anyone of possessions or qualities: Cicero says that lyric poetry, stripped of its music, is left almost bare prose.^[2][4]

Church Latin glosses it “strip, rob, plunder”,^[5] and Köbler records it in British medieval Latin about 1220.^[6]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius of stripping the dead (deponent).^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of robbing people and plundering temples.^[2][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of stripping a man for flogging.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To strip of clothing; to strip (of bark or other natural covering).^[2][1]
2. To strip (a defeated enemy) of arms, despoil; to disarm.^[2][1]
3. To rob by violence.^[2][5]
4. To plunder, pillage (places).^[2][5]
5. To deprive (of possessions or qualities).^[2]

Word family

• cōnspoliō
• dēspoliō
• dispoliō
• exspoliō
• spoliābilis
• spoliātiō
• spoliātor
• spoliātus

Related words

• spoliārium
• spoliātrīx
• spolium

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 j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c 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