tecum
English
Noun
tecum (uncountable)
- Alternative form of tucum
Latin
Etymology
From Latin tē (“you”) + cum (“with”).
Two, not necessarily mutually exclusive explanations have been offered:
The first explanation was offered by Cicero, who believed that the normal word order of cum nōbīs "with us" would sound too much like cunnō bis "twice in the cunt", so the words were reversed. This reversal was then applied to cum vōbīs, cum mē, cum tē, and cum sē.
A modern explanation is that the word ordering comes from the fact that in (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Indo-European the word *ḱóm (from which cum derives) was an adverb, not a preposition as it became in Latin. As such the *kom could appear before or after the object pronoun since it was the object of the verb, not the object of a preposition. As these special particles evolved into prepositions this word order became archaic even though it was still commonly used. Thus the contraction nōbīscum (and mēcum, etc.) evolved into an adverb in its own right.
Pronunciation
(Classical Latin) IPA(key): /ˈteː.kum/, [ˈt̪eːkʊ̃ˑ]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈte.kum/, [ˈt̪ɛːkum]
Adverb
tēcum (not comparable)
- with you, with thee
- Tēcum sentiō.
- I agree with you.
- Tēcum simul.
- Together with you.
- Pax tēcum.
- Peace be with you.
Descendants
See also
References
- “tecum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “tecum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- tecum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
- I have a point to discuss with you: res mihi tecum est
- I agree with you there: hoc mihi tecum convēnit (Att. 6. 1. 14)
- I have a point to discuss with you: res mihi tecum est
- “tecum”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly