86 Rev. Mr Williams on the Force of the prefix Ve or Vce 

 was, from the frequent use of his spurs, called a pricker : 



" A gentle knight came pricking o'er the lea." 



From the first and technical meaning of vestigium other signifi- 

 cations arose, of which that of the whole footstep was the most 

 natural. " Hac video socci vestigium in pulvere," says Plautus. 

 Hence also all other traces whatsoever were indicated by vesti- 

 gium. But still there remain in the best writers many passages 

 in which the word is used without the slightest allusion to its 

 secondary meaning, and for the explanation of which we must 

 have recourse to ve, little, and stightm, a point. These furnish 

 us with the " experimentum crucis" before alluded to, in which, 

 if the facts are not denied, the inference must be allowed. Such 

 was the use of the word by Caesar, " Eodemque tempore vis 

 magna pulveris cernebatur, et vestigio temporis primum agmen 

 erat in conspectus *." Here we have " vestigio temporis," not 

 in the meaning of vestige, trace, track, &c. but evidently for 

 " puncto temporis," in a moment. Should we entertain any 

 doubts, they will be resolved by the following passage from Ci- 

 cero's invective against Pi so, " Atque eodem in templo, eodem 

 et loci vestigio et temporis f ;" " and in the same temple, at the 

 same point both of time and place." Columella employs it in a 

 still more primary sense J (giving to stigium its first meaning of a 

 blow), where he writes, that a vine branch injured by the prun- 

 ing-knife, used ductim in opposition to ccesim, can be smoothed 

 (allevari) " uno vestigio," " with one slight stroke." 



Vegrandis ||. We have already seen, on Ovid's authority, 

 that vegrandis signified not well-grown. It remains now to show 



* Bell. Civ. lib. ii. c. 26. f Ca P- ix - t Lib. iv. c. 25. 



|| Grandis, a term borrowed from the swelling or rounding of the grains (grana) 

 of corn, afterwards applied to the full growth of other objects. It is peculiar to the 

 Latin language. 



