decempeda Latin · revision 36533

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=compound|attested=81–43 BC, Cicero|origins=la decem, la pēs}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * Classical: [dɛˈkɛm.pɛ.da]^(Wiktionary)

+ * Ecclesiastical: [deˈt͡ʃɛm.pe.da]^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''decempeda''' ''f'' (genitive decempedae); first declension^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[af|la|decem|pēs|t1=ten|t2=foot]], with the second part in the form ⟨-peda⟩.^(OLD 2012)^(Wiktionary)^(Bianchi & Lelli 2014) Wiktionary notes that its senses were influenced by [[grc|ἄκαινα|tr=ákaina]], a ten-foot measure based on a standardised ox goad.^(Wiktionary) The grammarian Priscian remarks that the word is masculine in Greek but feminine in Latin.^(TLL)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ It first appears in Cicero,^(Köbler 2010)^(TLL) 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”.^(TLL)^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+

+ ==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.^(TLL)^(Lewis & Short 1879) Horace looks back to a time when no private colonnades were measured out with such rods,^(TLL)^(Georges 1913) and Seneca uses it in his letters.^(TLL)

+

+ The land surveyor Balbus defined it as a rod of ten feet, also called [[pertica]],^(TLL) and Palladius speaks of a ''decempeda quadrāta'', a square with sides of ten feet.^(Georges 1913)^(Wiktionary) A British medieval glossary still explains it as a rod for measuring land.^(DMLBS)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of surveyors' measuring rods.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 65–8 BC – Horace speaks of colonnades measured out with ten-foot rods.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it in his letters.^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * end of 4th/beginning of 5th century AD – Palladius uses ''decempeda quadrāta'' for a square measure.^(Georges 1913)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A [[m|en|measuring]] [[m|en|rod]] ten feet long, used by [[m|en|surveyor|alt=surveyors]].^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Conte 2010)

+ # A length of ten (Roman) feet.^(OLD 2012)^(Wiktionary)

+ # ''decempeda quadrāta'': a unit of [[m|en|area]], a square with sides of ten feet.^(Georges 1913)^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[decempedalis]]

+ * [[decempedātor]]

+

+ ==Usage notes==

+ In the surveyors' list of measures it comes between the ''passus'' and the ''pertica''.^(TLL)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}