Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/95

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

ON THE DERIVATION OF THE LATIN VERB " USUBPARE."

A recent part of the Transactions of the Philo- logical Society contains a paper by Professor Key, "On the Derivation and Meaning of the Latin verb usurpare " (1855, p. 96.). Professor Key begins by rejecting Freund's derivation from usu rapere, "to seize to one's use." He remarks justly, that the sense of "usurping" does not properly belong to usurpo ; and he further points out that the derivation from rapere does not ac- count for usurpo being of the first conjugation. He then expresses his opinion that the verb in question was deduced directly from an adjectival form, usurupus or usurups, and that usurpare, contracted from usurupare, properly signifies " to perform the office of a usus-breaker."

Professor Key is doubtless right in treating " usurpare as a technical term, which has passed from legal phraseology into common use. Its primitive and proper meaning, however, seems rather that of acquiring a title by possession than of interrupting the possession of another. Thus the phrase usurpare servitutem means to exercise a right over an easement, and not primarily to prevent the exercise of another's right. In the year after the admission of plebeians to the ques- torship, the tribunes are described by Livy as enraged at the election of none but patricians to that office, and exclaiming, " Quidnam id rei esset ? non suis beneficiis, non patrum injuriis, non denique usurpandi libidine quum liceat quod non ante licuerit, si non tribunum militarem, ne quses- torem quidem quemquam ex plebe factum" (iv. 44.). Here the primary idea is the assertion of a right, by exercising it for the first time. A simi- lar idea is conveyed in his account of the election of the first plebeian to the office of consular tri- bune. The tribunes, he says, urged the election of several plebeians : " Non tamen ultra proces- sum est quam ut unus ex plebe, usurpandi juris causa, P. Licinius Calvus tribunus militum con- sulari potestate crearetur" (v. 12.).

According to the Law of the Twelve Tables, a woman who absented herself for three nights in a year from a man with whom she cohabited, saved herself from becoming his wife by prescription. When she went away, she was said " ire usur- patum," " abesse a viro usurpandi causa ; " that is to say, she absented herself in order to assert her right of independence by exercising it : in the same manner that a person who allows the com- mon use of a road, without dedicating it to the public, exercises his right by setting up a barrier across it from time to time. In this case the idea of interrupting another's inchoate right agrees with the context ; but the simple idea of asserting a right by the exercise of it is equally suitable. (See Dirksen, Zwolf-Tafel-Fragmente, p. 418.)

Looking to the different uses of the word in legal phraseology, it appears to me that another derivation would fulfil the conditions of the prob- lem better than that proposed by Professor Key. I would deduce the word from usu-parare, and would understand it as signifying " to acquire by user." The sense of parare in its compounds is variable. In comparare (with the force of com." paring), separare, and eequiparare, it means " to place," " to arrange;" in imperare its force is not so obvious ; the original meaning seems to have been that of a requisition in kind, " to compel a person to produce or furnish something;" as "fru- mentum imperatum." In adparare and prce- parare, also comparare and reparare in some of their senses, the verb does not differ materially from its use in the simple form.

One of the senses of parare is to acquire, " ac- quirere, adsciscere," as it is rendered by Forcel- lini, who illustrates this well-known force of the word by examples. The compound form, com- parare, likewise bears this sense. Thus Cicero says, " Comparare victum et cultum humanum labore et industria." Hence the Italian comperare or comprare t and the Spanish comprar, " to buy." Reparare likewise signifies "to reacquire, to re- cover." Thus Pliny says, " Reparare quod ami- seris:" Ovid, "Nee nova crescendo reparabat cornua Phoebe :" Lucan, " Nee reparare novas vires, multurnque priori Credere fortune."

From parare, in the sense of acquiring, the Romance languages have formed a new com- pound, emparar or amparar, Spanish, Portuguese, and Provenqal ; s'emparer, French, " to take pos- session of, to seize." Hence, too, the Italian im- parare and apparare, " to learn, to seize with the mind," and disparare, " to unlearn." Amparar, Spanish, whence the substantive ampura, is a law term, and denotes the seizure of moveable or chattel property : " amparar en la posesion " is to maintain in possession. This approaches very close to the meaning which is assigned to the verb parare in the proposed derivation of usurpo. (See Diez., Roman. Worterbuch, in v. parare, p. 251. ; Muratori, Dissert, xxxiii., in imparare.)

If we suppose the sense of acquiring to obtain in the compound verb usuparo or usupero, we can easily conceive, first, its contraction into usvpro, and then its conversion into usurpo. The letter r seems to have been peculiarly subject to trans- position in an Italian mouth. Professor Key has himself given some examples of this change in his paper on "Metathesis," Trans, of Philol. Soc,, 1854, p. 209. (Compare Diez, Roman. Gram- matik, vol. i. p. 248.) Thus, stravi and stratus are formed from xterno. Compare repo with serpo and epiru ; rapax with ap-^a^. In- Greek there are Qapaos and Ofidffos, itapros and Kpdros, KapSia and KpaSia. The ancient town Croton be- coines Cotrone in Italian, which also has interpe-