conus

Forms

cōnus m (genitive cōnī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “pine cone; cone”).^[2][3][1] Etymonline gives the Greek word the senses cone, spinning top and pine cone, and calls it perhaps from a root Proto-Indo-European *ko- (“to sharpen”);^[4] Köbler compares the roots *k̑ēi- (“to sharpen, whet”) and *ak̑- (“sharp”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucretius and Cicero use it first, for the geometrical figure:^[5][6] a speaker in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods finds the shape of a cylinder, square, cone or pyramid more beautiful than a sphere.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Beside the figure, it named conical things:^[2][5] the top of a helmet that held the crest, in Virgil and Ovid,^[2][5] a kind of sundial whose invention Vitruvius ascribes to Dionysodorus,^[2] and the cone of the cypress and other conifers in Columella.^[2][5] Isidore of Seville still explains it as part of the helmet.^[5]

English took it over as cone in the 1560s, from French or directly from Latin.^[4]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of the cone-like look of a long colonnade.^[5][6][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for the geometrical cone.^[2][3]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius names a sundial called cōnus.^[2][3]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it for the top of a helmet.^[2][3]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it for cypress cones.^[2][3]
• 1560s – English borrows it as cone.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geometry) A cone.^[2][5]
2. The apex of a helmet, which holds the crest.^[2][5]
3. A kind of sundial.^[2][5]
4. The cone of a coniferous tree.^[2][5]

Word family

• cōnicus
• cōnifer
• cōniger

Related words

• English cone

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften