[German version]

In antiquity the interest in identifying more closely the specific meaning (proprietas ac differentia; Quint. Inst. 1 pr. 16) of synonyms that are related in their root or different in form but semantically very close (polliceri/promittere, nullus/nemo, intus/intro, [1. 47]) extends back to Greek philosophy of language (Plato and the Sophists, the Stoa, later Cicero, Nigidius Figulus). In Rome it finds its place in oratory (Cato), rhetoric (Quint. Inst. 9,3,45ff.), jurisprudence and especially among the grammarians …