decempeda

Forms

decempeda f (genitive decempedae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin decem (“ten”) + pēs (“foot”), with the second part in the form ⟨-peda⟩.^[2][1][3] Wiktionary notes that its senses were influenced by Ancient Greek ἄκαινα (ákaina), a ten-foot measure based on a standardised ox goad.^[1] The grammarian Priscian remarks that the word is masculine in Greek but feminine in Latin.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Cicero,^[5][4] who in the speech for Milo describes a man going round other people's country houses cum architectīs et decempedīs, “with architects and measuring rods”.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

In Cicero it is the surveyor's rod: in the Philippics a skilled land measurer has divided up a city with his rod, and in the Academica he speaks of measuring the size of the sun as if with a ten-foot rod.^[4][6] Horace looks back to a time when no private colonnades were measured out with such rods,^[4][7] and Seneca uses it in his letters.^[4]

The land surveyor Balbus defined it as a rod of ten feet, also called pertica,^[4] and Palladius speaks of a decempeda quadrāta, a square with sides of ten feet.^[7][1] A British medieval glossary still explains it as a rod for measuring land.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of surveyors' measuring rods.^[4][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace speaks of colonnades measured out with ten-foot rods.^[4][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it in his letters.^[4][5]
• end of 4th/beginning of 5th century AD – Palladius uses decempeda quadrāta for a square measure.^[7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A measuring rod ten feet long, used by surveyors.^[2][6][9]
2. A length of ten (Roman) feet.^[2][1]
3. decempeda quadrāta: a unit of area, a square with sides of ten feet.^[7][1]

Word family

• decempedalis
• decempedātor

Usage notes

In the surveyors' list of measures it comes between the passus and the pertica.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
9. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier