Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-r6c6k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-05T21:01:41.251Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Semantic Notes to ob, optimus, optimates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Norman W. Dewitt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'

Information

Type
Miscellanea
Information
Language , Volume 13 , Issue 1-Part1: January-March , March 1937 , pp. 70 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © 1937 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch2; Heidelberg, Carl Winter, 1910.

2 Dictionnaire étymologique de la Langue latine; Paris, Klincksieck, 1932.

3 Stichus 493.

4 De Agr. 48.2.

5 Pliny, H. N. 8.18.26 §68.

6 XII Tables, Festus 233 Müll.

7 Cic. Tus. Dis. 3.18.39.

8 My colleague Professor J. D. Robbins of the English department calls my attention to a close parallel in an Anglo-Saxon gloss : Eclypsis solis, is sunnan ásprungennysse (uppsprungenness). The word in brackets means defectio solis.

9 Frederik Muller, Altitalisches Wörterbuch, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926.

10 See notes 6 and 7.

11 Ennius, Trag. 362 Vahien.

12 Cic. Verr. 2.2. 32 §78.

13 Tac. An. 14.14.

14 Ob ‘up’ is the cognate of Dutch op, AS up, uppe, Gothic iup (from IE euh, ) but not the same as OHG ūf, NHG auf. The best suggestion is that of Franck, Etymologisch Woordenboek de Nederlansche Taal2, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1929, who proposes that both ub and up existed in IE, the variation being due to some proethnic sandhi. This assumption would account for Latin operio from *op-verio, where *ob-verio is ruled out by obvenio, obverto.