spumo

Forms

spūmō (present infinitive spūmāre, perfect active spūmāvī, supine spūmātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin spūma (“foam”) + -ō.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces spūma to Proto-Italic *spoimā- (“foam”) and Proto-Indo-European *spoHi-m- (“foam”), one of several derivatives with ⟨-m-⟩ and ⟨-n-⟩ from the same root.^[4] Cognate with Sanskrit फेन (phéna-, “foam”), Lithuanian spáinė (“foam”) and Old English fām (“foam”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first example in the OLD is in a tragedy of Ennius, where the seas foam with blood.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means to foam or froth, of water, blood and the like, and of a cup brimming with foam, as the bowl Bitias drains in Virgil.^[2][3] Of places it is to be covered with foam, as a coast in the Ciris.^[2] Of animals it is to foam at the mouth, as Virgil's foaming boar, and the poet Macer uses it of sweat.^[2] Cicero's Prognostica has it transitively, of rocks covered with snowy foam.^[2] Lewis & Short note that it is poetic and post-Augustan.^[3]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius of seas foaming with blood.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of rocks covered with foam.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a foaming cup and a foaming boar.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To foam, froth; to be covered with foam.^[2][3][1]
2. To foam at the mouth.^[2]
3. To cover with foam.^[2][3]

Word family

• dēspūmō
• exspūmō
• inspumo
• spūmābundus
• spūmātiō
• spūmātus
• spūmēscō
• spūmidus

Related words

• spūma

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b 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 c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de