suspensus

Forms

suspēnsus (feminine suspēnsa, neuter suspēnsum, comparative suspēnsior, superlative suspēnsissimus); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is the participle of suspendō (“to hang up; to keep in suspense”), used as an adjective.^[1][2][3] The verb is sub- (“under, up”) with pendō (“to hang; to weigh”), whose further origin de Vaan finds uncertain: most handbooks take it as a variant of Proto-Indo-European *(s)penh₁- (“to spin”), while the LIV makes the ⟨-d-⟩ part of the root.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pacuvius has “the city, anxious, stunned with eagerness, its mind in suspense”;^[1] Köbler gives Cicero.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Of winds it is falling softly or light, as Lucretius' light breeze, and of soil lying light.^[1] Of people it is in anxious uncertainty or suspense, as in Pacuvius, also in suspēnsō, and of things marked by such uncertainty, as Cicero's man with a fearful, troubled, doubtful face.^[1][5] Of a matter it is not settled or decided, as Livy's “on hearing this they left everything undecided”, and of language vague, as the words of Tiberius, always vague and obscure, in Tacitus.^[1] In suspēnsō is also in abeyance, of legal rights.^[1]

Church Latin glosses it “suspended, hanging, wavering, uncertain, hesitating”.^[6]

Timeline

• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius of a city in suspense.^[1][3]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of a light breeze.^[1][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a troubled face.^[1][3]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of Tiberius' vague words.^[1][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Hanging, suspended;^[6] (of winds) light;^[1] (of soil) lying light.^[1]
2. In suspense, anxious, uncertain; wavering, hesitating.^[1][6]
3. Undecided, unsettled;^[1] (of words) vague.^[1]
4. in suspēnsō, in abeyance.^[1]

Related words

• suspendō
• pendeō
• pendō
• English suspense

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson