pollingo

According to De Vaan, from Proto-Italic *porwlinkʷō, from *por- + a nasal present formed on Proto-Indo-European *wleykʷ- (“fluid, wet”) (the same root as liqueō, ēlixus).^[1] In Plautus, there are attestations of an agent noun pollictor built on an alternative supine/PPP stem pollict- (the vowel -i- would be expected to be short here according to De Vaan's etymology).

The expected present stem according to this etymology, *pollinqu-, does not occur: De Vaan suggests -nqu- was analogically replaced by -ng- in the present stem by back-formation from other stems such as pollict-. The present stem polling- is rare and attested chiefly in late grammatical discussions; it may have been influenced by the false or folk etymology that derived this word from a compound of polluō and ungō, as in Fulgentius's explanation of pollinctores as having the meaning of pollutorum unctores "anointers of defilers".

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [pɔlˈlɪŋ.ɡoː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [polˈliŋ.ɡo]

pollingō (present infinitive pollingere, perfect active pollīnxī, supine pollīnctum or *pollictum); third conjugation (pre-classical and post-classical)

1. to wash a corpse in preparation for a funeral
   • c. 194 BCE, Plautus, Poenulus prologus.0.64–65:

     Propterea apud vos dico confidentius,
     quia mihi pollictor dixit qui eum pollinxerat.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 14 CE – 37 CE, Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium 7.7.4:

     Spernis quos genuisti, nubis effeta, testamenti ordinem violento animo confundis neque erubescis ei totum patrimonium addicere, cuius pollincto iam corpori marcidam senectutem tuam substravisti.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • c. 58 CE, Seneca the Younger, De vita beata 7.3:

     Virtutem in templo conuenies, in foro in curia, pro muris stantem, pulverulentam coloratam, callosas habentem manus: voluptatem latitantem saepius ac tenebras captantem circa balinea ac sudatoria ac loca aedilem metuentia, mollem enervem, mero atque unguento madentem, pallidam aut fucatam et medicamentis pollinctam.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 5th c., Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Expositio sermonum antiquorum 3:

     Pollinctores dicti sunt quasi pollutorum unctores, id est cadaverum curatores, unde et Apuleius in Ermagora ait: 'Pollincto eius funere domuitionem paramus'.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • after 1150, Huguccio Pisanus, Derivationes‎^[1]:

     Item componitur cum per vel porro et dicitur polluo -is -lui -lutum, idest deturpare, inquinare, et componitur cum ungo et dicitur pollingo -gis -nxi -nctum, quod est cadavera sepelire vel accurare, quasi pollutos ungere, idest mortuos curare; unde Plautus 'sicut pollinctor dixit qui eum pollinxerat'; unde pollinctor -ris, sepultor mortuorum, quasi pollutorum unctor, idest cadaverum curator, et hoc pollinctorium, locus ubi cadavera ponuntur, et pollinctus -a -um, funeratus, sepultus, quasi pollutus unctus, idest cadaver curatum; unde et Apuleius 'pollincto eius funere'.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• pollīnctor / pollictor

• “pollingo”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pollingo”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• pollingo, in ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ [Logeion] Dictionaries for Ancient Greek and Latin (in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese), University of Chicago, since 2011