praecerpo Latin · revision 34650

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=derivation|attested=1st century BC, Cicero and Catullus|origins=ine-pro *kerp-e/o-}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * Classical: [prae̯ˈkɛr.poː]^(Wiktionary)

+ * Ecclesiastical: [preˈt͡ʃɛr.po]^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''praecerpō''' (present infinitive praecerpere, perfect active praecerpsī, supine praecerptum); third conjugation^(Wiktionary)

+ The OLD also records the unweakened form ''praecarpō'', quoted from Oppius.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[af|la|prae-|carpō|t2=to pluck, pick]].^(OLD 2012)^(Conte 2010)^(Bianchi & Lelli 2014)^(Wiktionary) De Vaan reconstructs [[itc-pro|*karp-]] for [[m|la|carpō]] and derives it from [[ine-pro|*kerp-e/o-|t=to pick, pluck]].^(de Vaan 2008)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ Its first citations are in Cicero's Verrines, “I do not pluck in advance the fruit of your duty” (''nōn praecerpō frūctum officī tuī''), and in Catullus, of a reaper cropping the thick ears of grain.^(OLD 2012)^(Gaffiot 2016)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ Its first sense is to [[m|en|pluck]] or cut off, especially the end of something: Pliny the Elder advises muzzling oxen when ploughing among trees so that they do not crop the tender shoots, and Statius uses it of cutting off a lion's mane.^(OLD 2012)^(Gaffiot 2016) Gellius uses it of excerpting passages from Aristotle's books of problems.^(OLD 2012)^(Gaffiot 2016) It also means to take an early crop or reap early: Oppius, quoted by Macrobius, writes that some citrons are picked early while others are still ripening.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879) To reap before someone else gives figurative uses, as in Cicero's line and in Ovid's “who allowed you to reap our harvest first?”.^(OLD 2012)^(Conte 2010) From this it came to mean to take the bloom off something before its time and so spoil it: Tacitus writes of praise plucked, as it were, in the blade or flower, which never ripens into fruit, and Quintilian and Pliny the Younger of the charm of novelty being spent too early.^(OLD 2012)^(Bianchi & Lelli 2014) Minucius Felix speaks of food from which the first portion had been taken beforehand at sacrifices.^(Georges 1913)^(Conte 2010) Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan in prose.^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it figuratively, of plucking the fruit of another's duty.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it of a reaper cropping ears of grain.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of oxen cropping shoots.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of praise spent too early.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * c. 165 AD – Gellius uses it of making excerpts from a book.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Verb===

+ # To [[m|en|pluck]] or cut off the end of something; to crop.^(OLD 2012)^(Gaffiot 2016)

+ # To [[m|en|excerpt]] passages from a book.^(OLD 2012)^(Gaffiot 2016)

+ # To take an early crop of, reap early; to reap before others.^(OLD 2012)^(Georges 1913)

+ # ''(figurative)'' To take the bloom off something before its time, spoil, [[m|en|forestall]].^(OLD 2012)^(Bianchi & Lelli 2014)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[praecerptus]]

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}