suscenseo

Forms

suscēnseō (present infinitive suscēnsēre, perfect active suscēnsuī); second conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1] It is also spelled succēnseō, the form under which Lewis & Short and Wiktionary list it.^[2][1]

Etymology

The OLD and de Vaan take it as from Latin sub- + cēnseō (“to assess, judge”).^[3][4] De Vaan traces cēnseō to Proto-Italic *knsē- (“to estimate”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱns-eh₁- (“to announce”).^[4] Lewis & Short and Wiktionary instead derive the spelling ⟨succēnseō⟩ from succēnsus, the participle of succendō (“to set on fire from below”), so that it would first mean to be inflamed with anger.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4] whose Mostellaria has “I am neither angry with him nor resentful at all”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to be angry or indignant, usually with a dative of the person: Cicero asks who could rightly be angry with him for his studies.^[3][2] Terence and Cicero put the cause of displeasure in the accusative, mostly a neuter pronoun, as in Terence's Andria if he is angry now because Chremes will not give him a wife.^[3] Caesar has the gerundive: no one should be angry with him or his soldiers.^[2] Suetonius has the accusative and infinitive, of Gaius Caesar angry that the streets had not been swept.^[3] Lewis & Short give īrāscor and indignor as synonyms.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus in the Mostellaria.^[2][4][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence with the cause in the accusative.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero with a dative of the person.^[3][2][5]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius with an accusative and infinitive.^[3][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be angry or indignant (with), usually with a dative.^[3][2][1]
2. With an accusative, usually a neuter pronoun, to be angry at or about something.^[3]
3. With an accusative and infinitive, to be angry that.^[3]

Related words

• cēnseō
• succendō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d 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 d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de