tute

Forms

tūte (emphatic nominative of tū; accusative and ablative tētē)^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin tū (“you”) + -te, with an emphatic particle.^[1][2][3] De Vaan traces tū to Proto-Italic *tū and to a Proto-Indo-European nominative *ti(H), later replaced by ⟨*tu(H)⟩ outside Anatolian; he compares Sanskrit त्वम् (tvám, “you”) and Hittite zik (“you”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest example in Lewis & Short is Ennius' alliterative line Ō Tite, tūte, Tatī, tibi tanta, tyranne, tulistī.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is an emphatic "you yourself", often with ipse.^[2][1] Georges finds it in the comic writers and in Cicero.^[5] In Plautus' Amphitruo a speaker insists that it was tūte, "you yourself", who said it, with Sosia standing by, and Terence has tūte ipse, "you yourself", in the Andria.^[2] Cicero uses it in De re publica and in his letters: tūte scīs, "you know yourself".^[2] Similar emphatic forms are tētē for the accusative and ablative, and tūtemet with -met, as in Terence and Lucretius.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius in an alliterative line.^[2]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus in the Amphitruo.^[2]
• 190–159 BC – Terence, tūte ipse.^[2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero in De re publica and his letters.^[2][5]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (emphatic) You yourself.^[1][2][5]

Related words

• tū
• tūtemet

Usage notes

A rare adverb tūtē, made from tūtus, means "safely, securely": Plautus has crēde huic tūtē, "trust him safely", and the Rhetorica ad Herennium says that he lives safely who lives honourably.^[2][3] The usual adverb is tūtō.^[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 j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn