mancus

English

Etymology

Latinized form of Arabic منقوش (manqūsh). (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

mancus (plural mancuses)

  1. (historical) A gold coin used in medieval Europe.
  2. (historical) An equivalent unit of monetary account.

Synonyms

Anagrams

Latin

Etymology

Probably from Proto-Indo-European *mh₂n-ko- (“maimed in the hand”), from *méh₂-r̥ ~ *mh₂-én- (“hand”), with semantic shift "hand" > "handy" > "handicapped, having a defect of the hand". Cognates include manus and Old Norse mund (“hand”).[1]

An alternate theory derives the word from Proto-Indo-European *menk- (“to lack”), comparing Lithuanian meñkas (“poor, small”) and Tocharian B mänk- (“to be deprived of, lack”).[2] The root of these words is at times alternatively reconstructed as *men- (“small, isolated”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

mancus (feminine manca, neuter mancum); first/second-declension adjective

  1. maimed, crippled, handicapped, infirm
  2. defective, imperfect

Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

singular plural
masculine feminine neuter masculine feminine neuter
nominative mancus manca mancum mancī mancae manca
genitive mancī mancae mancī mancōrum mancārum mancōrum
dative mancō mancae mancō mancīs
accusative mancum mancam mancum mancōs mancās manca
ablative mancō mancā mancō mancīs
vocative mance manca mancum mancī mancae manca

Descendants

  • Asturian: mancu
  • Albanian: mënk
  • Catalan: manc
  • French: manchot, manque
  • Italian: monco, manco, manca
  • Portuguese: manco
  • Romanian: mânc
  • Sicilian: mancu
  • Spanish: manco

References

  1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “mancus”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 361
  2. ^ Derksen, Rick (2015), “menkas”, in Etymological Dictionary of the Baltic Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 13), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 311

Further reading

  • “mancus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “mancus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • "mancus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • “mancus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
This page is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.