dorsum - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Learned borrowing from Latin dorsum (“the back”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈdɔː.səm/
• (General American) IPA(key): /ˈdɔɹ.səm/

dorsum (plural dorsa)

1. (anatomy) The back or dorsal region on the surface of an animal.
   Synonym: back
   1. The back of the tongue, used for articulating dorsal consonants.
   2. The top of the foot or the back of the hand.
2. (geology) A ridge on a hill, or on the surface of a planet or moon.
3. (astronomy) Theta Capricorni, a star on the back of the Goat.

• dorsal, dorsumal
• dorsum sellae
• “dorsum”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “dorsum”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• dromus, dumsor
• (Classical Latin) IPA(key): [ˈdɔr.sũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): [ˈdɔr.sum]

From Proto-Italic *dorsom, probably derived from deorsum (“downwards”) < _*dēvorsum_, with a semantic shift from "turned away from" > "back". Ramat notes that the two terms' contemporaneous use suggests that one was not a phonetic development of the other;[1] however, De Vaan explains this as a case of lexical differentiation in the written and by extension spoken forms.[2] A potential connection with a Proto-Celtic *dros-man, giving Old Irish druimm (“back, ridge”), is unclear.

• dorsus
• dossum (late, proscribed)

dorsum (not comparable)

1. down, downwards, beneath, below; (motion/direction/order); in a lower situation

dorsum n (genitive dorsī); second declension

1. (anatomy) the back (part of the body between the neck and buttocks)
2. (transferred sense) the ridge, summit of a hill, a reef in the sea; any elevation
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Vergilius, Aeneis 1.108–110:
     Trīs Notus abreptās in saxa latentia torquet —
     saxa vocant Italī mediīs quae in flūctibus ārās —
     dorsum immāne marī summō [...].
     Three [ships] were taken away [by] the Southwind, hurled into hidden rocks – rocks the Italians call the Altars, which [are] in the middle of the waves – a vast reef near the surface of the sea.
     (This “vast reef” or “huge ridge” posed a hidden danger; understood more imaginatively, a “monstrous spine” of rock destroyed the ships. Notus was the Greek south wind.)

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• dorsālis

• dorsō

• Dorsō

• dorsuālis

• Vulgar Latin: dossum (see there for further descendants)

• → Catalan: dors

• → English: dorsum

• → Esperanto: dorso

• → Italian: dorso

• → Portuguese: dorso

• → Spanish: dorso

• https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/other/673/?h=dorsum

• https://outils.biblissima.fr/en/collatinus-web/

• “dorsum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press

• “dorsum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

• "dorsum", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

• “dorsum”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

1. ^ Ramat, The Indo-European Languages
2. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “dorsum”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 180

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

dorsum (not comparable)

1. alternative form of deorsum (“down”)

• “deorsum” in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present