Etymologically
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duodeni

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Forms

duodēnī m pl (feminine duodēnae, neuter duodēna; genitive duodēnum); first/second-declension numeral[1][2] An inscription has duodinos.[3]

Etymology

It is the distributive of duodecim (“twelve”), formed after dēnī (“ten each”).[1][3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cato.[4]

Semantic evolution

It means twelve each or twelve at a time: Caesar has wives shared by groups of ten and twelve and a double ditch twelve feet wide each, and Cicero twelve iugera allotted to each man.[5][2] In poetry it is simply twelve, as Virgil's twelve stars.[5][2] In the letters of Pliny and Trajan duodēnīs assibus is interest at twelve per cent.[5] The neuter used as a noun is a set of twelve.[1] The singular duodēnus means twelvefold, as Apuleius' twelvefold labour of Hercules, or twelfth.[2][1] Church Latin has “twelve each”.[6]

Timeline

  • 234–149 BC – Cato has the word.[4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of twelve iugera each.[5][4]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar, of a ditch twelve feet wide.[5][4]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil, of twelve stars.[5][4]
  • c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius has the singular, “twelvefold”.[2][4]

Meanings

Numeral

  1. Twelve each, twelve at a time.[1][5][6]
  2. (poetic) Twelve.[5][2]
  3. (neuter as noun) A group of twelve.[1]
  4. (singular) Twelvefold; twelfth.[1][2]

Word family

  • duodēnārius

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson