arcessō

Meaning

1. to send for, call, invite, summon, fetch
   etenim cavendum est, ne arcessitum dictum puteturWe must beware, lest our statement be seen as forced55 BCE, Cicero, De oratore 2.256
2. to summon or arraign someone before a court of justice; accuse, inform against

Latīnē defined in Latin in our graded readers

Choosing the right word Döderlein's Latin Synonyms

Conjugation conjugation 3

Phrases from Meissner's Latin Phrase-Book

auxilia arcessere

to summon auxiliary troops.

arcessitum dictum (De Or. 2. 63. 256)

a far-fetched joke.

Origins

Disputed. * Nussbaum proposes that accersō may reflect ad- + *kers-sō, the latter component of which continues a *-(h₁)seti desiderative of the root *ḱers- (“to run”). Regarding the semantics, the linguist José L. García Ramón argues that the term originally meant "to run, go for," before shifting to mean "to seek, search for," which itself eventually came to mean "to summon, send for." For a semantic connection btween the concepts of running and desire, compare English phrases such as run for one's life or run for cover. The sense of this term was possibly further influenced by the verb acciō (“to grab, call, invite”). * Alternatively, the term has been connected with the root *h₁erkʷ-, although De Vaan rejects this theory as the expected Latin outcome would be *arquessō. * Another, older proposal, is that it may derive from a verb suffixed with third conjugation -iō verb suffixed with -essō, akin to facessō from faciō or lacessō from laciō. One proposal holds that the term derives from *arfacessō, although the philologist Edwin Fay considers a shift from the verb faciō (“to make”) to a verb with a causative meaning unlikely. Moreover, Fay argues that it is generally rare throughout Latin for the recomposition of a compound verb to leave little trace of the original form. De Vaan also considers this explanation to be unlikely, as there is no evidence for the presence of *-fa- in the pre-form. * Alternatively, the linguist Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen proposes a derivation from *arvocessō. Brugmann opposes the latter option due to phonological and semantic difficulties. However, Fay suggests that they may be resolvable if the term derives from *arucessō, from *arvocassō. Nevertheless, Fay still considers this explanation "gratuitous," even if his aforementioned emendations are accepted. * Fay compares the term to Sanskrit कर्षति (kárṣati). Another linguist, Nazari, also supports this comparison. Nazari argues that a root *(s)kers- may have produced the Sanskrit forms and a Latin term *cerssō, whence *arcersō. Afterwards. according to Fay, the form *arcersō may have shifted to *accessō via the shift of the Latin consonant cluster -rs- into -s- (see prōrsus, prōsus). Fay proposes that accersō may have emerged as part of a conscious and intentionally archaicizing effort to restore the *-rs- cluster in the term. According to Fay, this same archaicizing effort resulted in confusion regarding the proper pronunciation of the term, which allowed for a blend of accersō and *accessō that produced arcessō. * Classically, in his Institutiones grammaticae, Priscian argues that Latin speakers had used an allomorph of ad- in ar-, arcessō would then be derived from *arciō, an obsolete variant of acciō. It is debated whether accersō or arcessō is the original form. Nussbaum affirms that accersō is older, arguing that a change of -rs- to -ss- is well-attested in other forms such as dorsum > dossum. García Ramón also favors the interpretation that accersō is more archaic, as it is the more unusual and difficult form, and therefore more likely to have been changed into arcessō. In addition to the aforementioned considerations, De Vaan notes that the perfect form arcessīvī is rarely attested prior to Cicero, and thus the present form arcessō—which is implied by the perfect—may have slowly replaced earlier accersō. This proposal is rejected by other linguists, such as James Poultney, who argues that arcessō is likely the older form and accersō emerged according to a shift of -r- to the second syllable. Poultney proposes that—in some Indo-European languages—when a term with -r- is replaced by a word with -r- in a following position, the first -r- is removed and a second -r- is added to a syllable that previously lacked the sound. For instance, Κέκροψ (Kékrops), possibly from *Κέρκοψ (*Kérkops). According to this same sound role, the form arcessō may have shifted into accersō. The ac- in accersō, according to Walde-Hofmann, may have been influenced by forms such as accēdō and acciō.