Auctoritas - Etymology and Origin

Etymology and Origin

According to French linguist Emile Benveniste, auctor (which also gives us English "author") is derived from Latin augeĊ ("to augment"). The auctor is "is qui auget", the one who augments the act or the juridical situation of another.

Auctor in the sense of "author", comes from auctor as founder or, one might say, "planter-cultivator". Similarly, auctoritas refers to rightful ownership, based on one's having "produced" or homesteaded the article of property in question - more in the sense of "sponsored" or "acquired" than "manufactured". This auctoritas would, for example, persist through an usucapio of ill-gotten or abandoned property.

Read more about this topic:  Auctoritas

Famous quotes containing the words etymology and/or origin:

    Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.
    Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)

    All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.
    William Wordsworth (1770–1850)