spumo
Pronunciation
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
Word family
- dēspūmō
- exspūmō
- inspumo
- spūmābundus
- spūmātiō
- spūmātus
- spūmēscō
- spūmidus
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ 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
- ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ 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
- ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de