vociferor

Forms

vōciferor (present infinitive vōciferārī, perfect active vōciferātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1] Varro has the active vōciferant, and Livy the participle in an impersonal passive construction.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin vōx (“voice”) + ferō (“to carry”), a deponent verb.^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces vōx to Proto-Italic *wōkʷs and Proto-Indo-European *wōkʷ-s (“voice”).^[4] Cognate with Sanskrit वाक् (vā́k, “voice, speech”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is a line of the comic poet Atta, of someone shouting in the street.^[2] De Vaan dates it from Varro.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It means to utter a loud cry, shout or yell, and of animals to make a loud noise, as Varro's cocks that often crow and Columella's goose that cried out at the coming of the Gauls while the dogs were silent.^[2][3] With an accusative it is to cry out words at the top of one's voice, as Cicero's “my day, voice and lungs would fail me if I tried to shout this now”, and with an accusative and infinitive or direct speech to cry out that.^[2] Döderlein distinguishes it from clāmō: both are human cries, but clāmāre expresses will, vōciferārī passion, in anger, pain or drunkenness.^[5]

Timeline

• first quarter of the 1st century BC – Atta of shouting in the street.^[2][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of crowing cocks.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of crying out words.^[2][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella of a goose crying out.^[3][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To utter a loud cry, shout, yell, scream; of animals, to make a loud noise.^[2][3][1]
2. To cry out words, vociferate, exclaim; to cry out that.^[2][3][1]

Related words

• vōx
• clāmō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ 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
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