Emolere

Emolere is a Latin verb that denotes the act of grinding or crushing material, often by rubbing or pounding it to a powder. The form is built from the root molere, “to grind,” with the prefix e-, indicating a sense of thoroughness or outward action. In surviving texts, emolere is primarily found in late Latin and medieval Latin, where it appears in discussions of food preparation, pharmacology, and other processes involving grinding substances.

Etymology and sense: The word reflects a common Latin pattern of prefixing the verb molere to emphasize an intensified or outward action. While molere itself is a productive root in classical Latin, emolere is comparatively rare and tends to occur in specialized or technical contexts. The typical sense centers on reducing material by mechanical means, whether for powders, mortars, or similar applications.

Attestations and usage: Emolere is encountered mainly in later manuscript sources, including pharmacological and agrarian treatises, glossaries, and technical vocabularies. In such contexts it may describe grinding seeds, minerals, resins, or other substances, sometimes as part of a preparation or recipe. In modern scholarship, the term is often cited as an example of a prefixal formation built on molere, illustrating how Latin compounds extend basic actions into more specific technical meanings.

Conjugation and morphology: As an -ere verb with a prefixed element, emolere is treated in many sources as a regular Latin verb of the second conjugation family, though the surviving forms and principal parts can vary across manuscripts. Because it is comparatively rare, exact inflectional paradigms are not as consistently attested as for more common verbs.

See also: molere, emollire (to soften), Latin pharmacological and agricultural terminology.

Note: Emolere is primarily of historical and philological interest, reflecting how Latin developed precise terms for material processing.