cacumen

Forms

cacūmen n (genitive cacūminis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3] It is usually compared with Sanskrit ककुभ् (kakúbh-, “peak, top”) and Sanskrit ककुद् (kakúd-, “peak”),^[2][4][5][1] and de Vaan also cites Ancient Greek κῦφος (kûphos, “hump”).^[2] Walde took it as ⟨*kakud-⟩ remade after acūmen (“point”), Pokorny set up a root Proto-Indo-European *keu(H)- (“to bend”), and Schrijver a reduplicated ⟨*kekubh-⟩; de Vaan finds these root shapes irregular and the vowels a poor match, and doubts, especially given ⟨acūmen⟩, that the word goes back to Proto-Indo-European at all.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the TLL date it from Cato,^[2][5][6] who uses it for cuttings taken from the tops of trees: “plant poplar tops there”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Its main sense is the peak or top of anything that tapers upward: mountain tops near the sky in Lucretius, the tops of dying trees in Varro, a flame rising with a double peak in Lucan.^[4] Ovid uses it of the heads of broken flowers that droop to the ground, and of young blades of grass pushing up through the soil.^[4] It is also the point of a cone, a height in the air, and in astronomy summum cacūmen and īmum cacūmen are the zenith and nadir.^[4] Figuratively it is a pinnacle, as Laberius' “the flowering peak of our fame”.^[4] Lewis and Short note that it is frequent in the poets and rare in prose before the Augustan age.^[3]

Church Latin has it for tip, summit, peak.^[7] Wiktionary also records it for an accent mark over a letter.^[1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato of cuttings from treetops.^[4][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of the tops of trees.^[4][6]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of mountain peaks.^[4][6]
• 106–43 BC – Laberius of the height of fame.^[4][6]
• 2nd quarter of 9th century – Walahfrid Strabo.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The peak, top, summit of something tapering upward; the top of a tree, flower or flame.^[4][3][1][7]
2. A young shoot, a blade of grass.^[4]
3. The tip, point or extremity of something.^[4][1]
4. A piece cut from the top of a tree or branch, used as a cutting, medicine or food.^[4]
5. A great height in the air;^[4] summum cacūmen, the zenith.^[4]
6. (figurative) A high point, pinnacle; an extreme limit.^[4][1]

Word family

• cacūminō

Related words

• acūmen
• culmen

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes acūmen, the natural point of a cone or beak, from cacūmen, the natural top, especially of a mountain;^[8] mucrō and cuspis are artificial points for piercing.^[8] Lewis and Short contrast it with culmen, an extremity that projects upward.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper