squaleo

Forms

squāleō (present infinitive squālēre, perfect active squāluī); second conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin squālus (“filthy”) + -eō.^[2][3] Wiktionary connects it with squālor (“dirt, roughness”).^[1] De Vaan finds no etymology for the adjective; because of its initial ⟨squ-⟩ it is probably not an inherited word.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the OLD find it first in Plautus,^[3][2] where a character in the Persa complains that his household goods and his house lie squalid.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Its basic idea is roughness: Virgil has rough shells, the scaly back of a lizard, and armour stiff with gold.^[2][4] From this it is to be caked with dirt, unkempt, as a filthy beard in Virgil and Dido's unkempt hair in Ovid.^[2][4] Cicero uses it only of mourning in squalid clothes: the city was in mourning dress by public decree.^[4] Of land it is to lie waste or barren, as Virgil's fields left untilled when the farmers are taken away;^[2] Tacitus and Lucan have desert shores and fields.^[4] Gellius applies it to a dry, barren style of speech.^[2] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic and post-Augustan.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of a squalid house.^[2][4][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of a city in mourning.^[4][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of a scaly lizard, a filthy beard and fields lying waste.^[2][4][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of a day darkened with ash.^[2][5]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius, of a barren style.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be covered with a rough or scaly layer; to be stiff with something.^[2][4][1]
2. To be caked with dirt, unkempt, squalid.^[2][4][1]
3. To wear the squalid dress of mourning.^[4]
4. Of clouds or daylight, to be dark or murky.^[2]
5. Of land, to lie waste, be barren;^[2][1] of style, to be arid.^[2]

Word family

• squalentia
• squālidus
• squālor
• squālēs
• squālitās

Related words

• squālefacio
• squālidē
• squāliditās
• squālitūdō
• squālus
• squāma

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de