subterfugio

Forms

subterfugiō (present infinitive subterfugere, perfect active subterfūgī); third (-iō variant) conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1] It is also spelled supterfugiō.^[2] It has no supine.^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin subter (“beneath, secretly”) + fugiō (“to flee”).^[2][1] De Vaan traces fugiō to Proto-Italic *fug-i- and Proto-Indo-European *bhug-i- (“to flee”).^[3] Cognate with Ancient Greek φεύγω (pheúgō, “to flee”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has both uses:^[2] someone says that Chrysalus has slipped away from him today, and another is told that he can dodge a few things, if not all.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The intransitive sense, to slip away secretly, is very rare.^[4] Transitively it means to avoid a threatened evil by skill or a trick, to dodge or evade;^[2] Lewis & Short call it a favourite word of Cicero, who has evading the force of charges, military service, punishment, danger, and all things as if they were fate.^[4] Livy uses it of escaping the storm of the Punic war, and Suetonius of evading the claims of the treasury.^[4] Church Latin has it as to evade, shun, escape or flee secretly.^[5] The noun subterfugium was formed from it.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of slipping away and of dodging.^[2][4][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of evading charges and military service.^[4][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of escaping a war.^[4][6]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius, of evading the treasury.^[4][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To slip away by stealth.^[2][4][1]
2. (transitive) To evade, dodge, shun, avoid.^[2][4][1]

Word family

• subterfugium

Related words

• fugiō
• effugiō
• subter

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ 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