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5 unusual facts about Late Latin


Chancel

The word "chancel" derives from the French usage of chancel from the Late Latin word cancellus meaning "lattice".

Country

The word country has developed from the Late Latin contra meaning "against", used in the sense of "that which lies against, or opposite to, the view", i.e. the landscape spread out to the view.

Cruciate ligament

By the time in the Late Latin period when Latin medical terminology was being established, this old meaning of cruciare seems to have fallen out of use in common speech, and the word was re-invented with the meaning "arrange in cross shape".

Garganey

The common English name dates from the 17th century and comes from dialect Italian gargenei, a variant of garganello, which ultimately comes from the Late Latin gargala "tracheal artery".

Undulopsychopsis

The genus name Undulopsychopsis was coined by the researchers as a combination of the silky lacewing type genus Psychopsis and the Late Latin word undula meaning "small wave" which is in reference to the distinctly wavy nature of the wing margins.


Cyprianus Gallus

Cyprianus Gallus (fl. c. 397–430) was a fifth-century poet who wrote a Late Latin epic versification of the historical books of the Vetus Latina, though only the Heptateuch (Heptateuchos) has survived to the present day.

Festoon

A Festoon (from French feston, Italian festone, from a Late Latin festo, originally a festal garland, Latin festum, feast), is a wreath or garland, and in architecture typically a carved ornament depicting conventional arrangement of flowers, foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons.

Ogive

Villard de Honnecourt, a 13th-century itinerant master-builder from the Picardy in the north of France, was the first writer to use the word ogive. The OED considers the French term's origin obscure; it might come from the Late Latin obviata, the feminine perfect passive participle of obviare, to resist, i.e. the arches resisting the downward force of the structure's mass.

Viscount

The word viscount, known to be used in English since 1387, comes from Old French visconte (modern French: vicomte), itself from Medieval Latin vicecomitem, accusative of vicecomes, from Late Latin vice- "deputy" + Latin comes (originally "companion"; later Roman imperial courtier or trusted appointee, ultimately count).


see also

Kliment

Kliment (Климент) is a male name, a Slavic form of the Late Latin male personal name Clement.

Morus

Moors, or Mōrus in late Latin, people of the Maghreb region

Praepostor

The word originally referred to a monastic prior and is late Latin of the Middle Ages, derived from classical Latin praepositus, "placed before".