vallo

Forms

vallō (present infinitive vallāre, perfect active vallāvī, supine vallātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin vallum (“rampart, palisade”) + -ō.^[2][1] De Vaan reconstructs vallum as Proto-Italic *walso- and compares Greek words for "nail" such as Ancient Greek ἧλος (hêlos, “nail”), a connection he calls possible but not compelling.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest citations are Varro's Menippean satires, of eyes ringed by moving lashes like a palisade, and Cicero, who in the speech for Murena describes Catiline surrounded by a band of young men and fenced in by informers and assassins.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a military word, to surround or fortify a camp with a palisaded rampart:^[4][2] the Bellum Alexandrinum has a camp fortified with great labour and by the nature of the ground, and Livy and Tacitus use it of fortifying camps.^[2][4] Virgil has an army camping before a city and fortifying the walls.^[2] It also means to hem in or ring round, of crowds of followers, as Catiline in Cicero, and of natural barriers: Propertius speaks of being buried under heaps of sand.^[2] Figuratively it means to safeguard: Cicero says that the person of a magistrate was meant to be fenced about by laws.^[2] Stelten gives "enclose, fortify" for Church Latin.^[5]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro of eyes ringed by lashes.^[2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of Catiline fenced in by assassins.^[2]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of fortifying a camp.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To surround or fortify with a palisaded rampart, entrench; to furnish with a palisade.^[2][4][1]
2. To hem in, ring round;^[2][5] (of natural barriers) to enclose.^[2][5]
3. (figurative) To safeguard, defend.^[2]

Related words

• vallum
• vallus
• circumvallō

Usage notes

Niermeyer records two medieval nouns vallō: one, from vallis, means "valley", and one, from vallus, means "stake".^[6]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill