Etymologically
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successor

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [sʊkˈkɛs.sɔr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [sutˈt͡ʃɛs.sor][1]

Forms

successor m (genitive successōris, feminine succestrīx); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin succēdō (“to come after, succeed”) + -tor.[2][1] The verb is from sub- and cēdō (“to go, yield”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *kesd-e/o- (“to go away, avoid”);[3] Lubotsky connects it with Sanskrit सेधति (sedhati, “drives away”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first examples in Lewis & Short are in Cicero, as “the predecessor envied his successor”.[4]

Semantic evolution

It is one who succeeds another in an office or position.[2][4] In law it is one who succeeds to property, an heir, as in Tacitus' Germans, whose heirs and successors are each man's own children, with no will.[2] Ovid uses it of the heir of Hercules' arrows, Philoctetes, and of a successor in poetry: “this one was your successor, Gallus, and Propertius his”.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “successor, follower”.[5]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of a successor in office.[4][6]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil.[6]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of the heir of Hercules' arrows and of a line of poets.[2][6]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus of heirs.[2][6]
  • c. 1300 – Borrowed into English as successor, through Anglo-French and Old French.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A successor in office or position, a follower.[2][4][1]
  2. (law) One who succeeds to property, an heir.[2]
  3. A successor in a field of study or art.[2]

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 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 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
  7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com