Talk:latir

Etymology

The RAE gives (deprecated template usage) glattīre as the souorce word in Latin, but I can find no evidence for such a verb in Classical or Later Latin. This may be an Iberianism, or it may be an error in the RAE. Either way, I have a hard time understanding where glattīre itself could be originated, or why a verb meaning "to howl" in Latin would produce a word meaning "to beat, throb" or "to bark" in Spanish. It is much more reasonable to suppose that Latin latrō (“bark”) is the source word, since it has one of the same meanings and a very similar spelling. --EncycloPetey 20:55, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The only additional useful references I can find are:

1. p.302 of Yakov Malkiel's Romanica-Iberoromanica, where he gives the same derivation as the RAE, but also discussing Old Portuguese and (modern?) Catalan. Neither the RAE nor Malkiel gives a citation of the word itself.
2. Speculum 23:280, a publication by the Medieval Academy of America. --EncycloPetey 21:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Some evidence is to be found at the entry in Dvoretsky's dictionary which does not cover Late Latin, but relies on the Classical (and to a lesser extent, Mediæval) heritage. The entry about glattio repræsents it as æquivalent to glattito, inf. glattitare. Unfortunately, no hints at the classical usage of glattio are given, but there is one at the usage of glattito - namely Su. = Suetonius. Considering the uncertainty about glattio and its juxtaposition with glattito, methinks it would be safe to change the origin to glattito (extant in Classical Latin) and in a forthcoming entry to insert the quote from Suetonius. Is this acceptable? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 16:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

To my dismay, I was unable to find this word (glattito) while serching through the works of Suetonius here. Verily astonishing... The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 16:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's used in what is designated as fragment 161, and can be attested e.g. on page 250 of the 1860 Reifferscheid Leipzig edition, see here (catulorum glattire). Oxford Latin Dictionary lists it under page 766, see the entry scan here. --Ivan Štambuk 17:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)