turgeo

Forms

turgeō (present infinitive turgēre, perfect active tursī); second conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1] The perfect tursī is found only in Ennius, and Pliny the Elder has a spelling turgue-.^[2]

Etymology

De Vaan finds no clear etymology: its meaning would allow a link with obtūrō (“to stop up”), but he thinks a verb made from an adjective ⟨*tūr-ago-⟩ “swelling”, one of Walde and Hofmann's suggestions, unlikely.^[3] Wiktionary reports Pokorny's derivation from Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂- (“to swell”), which de Vaan rejects, and Martirosyan's comparison with Old Armenian թուրծ (tʻurc, “cheek”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it first in Plautus,^[3] who in the Casina uses it of a wife swelling with anger against her husband.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Literally it is to be swollen or distended, as Cato has of a swollen spleen and Ennius of the Cyclops' belly, in the only instance of the perfect ⟨tursī⟩.^[4][2] Virgil uses it of buds swelling on the vine.^[2] Besides anger, it is used of an inflated style, as the Rhetorica ad Herennium says that bombastic speech often seems weighty to the unskilled.^[2] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic and not in Cicero.^[4] Döderlein contrasts it with tumeō: turgēre is a real fullness, tumēre a swelling with nothing inside.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of swelling with anger.^[2][3][6]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius, of a swollen belly.^[2][4][6]
• 234–149 BC – Cato, of a swollen spleen.^[4][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of swelling buds.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be swollen, swell.^[2][4][1][7]
2. Of plants, to swell with sap or new growth.^[2]
3. (figurative) To swell with anger against someone.^[2][1]
4. Of style, to be inflated, bombastic.^[2][1]

Word family

• turgēscō
• turgidus
• turgor

Related words

• turgidulus
• obtūrō
• tumeō

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 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson