cudo

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈkuː.doː]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈkuː.do]^[1]

Forms

cūdō (present infinitive cūdere, perfect active cūdī, supine cūsum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *kūd-e/o-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *kuh₂-d-e/o- (“to hit”).^[2] The /ū/ is a problem: it is often explained as the regular reduction of /au/ in the compounds such as excūdō, carried over to the simple verb, but Schrijver objects that the simple verb is attested too early and derives it from *keuh₂-dʰō.^[2]

Cognate with Lithuanian káuti (“to hit”), Old Church Slavonic ковати (kovati, “to forge”), Old High German houwan (“to hew”) and the Tocharian verbs for “to kill”.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus onwards,^[2] who calls someone “you who coin leaden money”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It meant to beat or strike, and in farming to thresh, as in Columella.^[3][4] From this it meant to make by beating: to hammer out a ring, forge metal, and strike coins, as in Terence's “I'm coining the money to give you”.^[3][5] Terence's proverb “this bean will be threshed on me” meant “I'll have to pay for it”.^[4][5]

It was rare and mostly early Latin and later prose.^[4] Its derivative incūs meant “anvil”.^[2][1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of coining money.^[3][6]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of coining money and in a proverb.^[3][5][6]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it in the sense “to strike”.^[3][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of threshing.^[4][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To beat, strike, hammer; to thresh.^[3][1]
2. To forge, hammer out; to stamp, coin (money).^[3][1]

Word family

• accudo
• cusio
• cuso
• cusor
• excūdō
• incūdō
• incūsus
• percudo
• prōcūdō
• subscūs
• incūs

Related words

• cauda
• caudex

Usage notes

A different word cūdo, cūdōnis, is a helmet of skin in Silius Italicus, of uncertain origin.^[3][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de