duodecimus

Forms

duodecimus (feminine duodecima, neuter duodecimum); first/second-declension numeral^[1] Manuscripts of Caesar, Vitruvius, Pliny the Elder and Tacitus also have duodecumus.^[2][3] An inscription has dodecimus.^[4][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin duodecim (“twelve”), its ordinal,^[1][5] formed after decimus (“tenth”).^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cato.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is “twelfth”, and pars duodecima or duodecima alone is a twelfth part.^[3] Lewis & Short call it a common word in Caesar, who has the twelfth legion many times, and Tacitus uses it of a legion too.^[6][4] The neuter duodecimō is an adverb, “for the twelfth time”, of a consul in the Historia Augusta.^[6][4] In Church Latin it keeps the sense “twelfth”.^[7]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato has the word.^[5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of the twelfth legion.^[6][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of a legion.^[4][5]

Meanings

Numeral

1. Twelfth.^[3][6][1]
2. pars duodecima, or duodecima alone: a twelfth part.^[3]

Related words

• duodecim
• decimus
• duodēnī

Usage notes

The adverb duodecimō, “for the twelfth time”, is the neuter ablative.^[6][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
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 d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson