vissio

Forms

vissiō (present infinitive vissīre); fourth conjugation, no perfect or supine stems^[1]

Etymology

Wiktionary takes it to be perhaps onomatopoeic.^[1] The OLD compares Old Norse físa,^[2] and Köbler refers it to Proto-Indo-European *u̯eis- (“to flow”) (Pokorny's root 3).^[3] Wiktionary lists the variants vīsiō, vissō and bissiō.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

An inscription from Pompeii has the form vissio.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant to pass wind quietly.^[2][1] It lived on in Romance: the OLD names it as the source of French vesser,^[2] and Wiktionary lists Old French vessir, Romanian băși and Aromanian bes, with Italian vescia reshaped by analogy.^[1]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fart softly, to pass wind quietly.^[2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ Kaše, Vojtěch; Heřmánková, Petra; Sobotková, Adéla et al. (2024), LIST: Latin Inscriptions in Space and Time, v1.2 (EDCS + EDH), Aarhus: SDAM, doi:10.5281/zenodo.10473706