Etymology 1
Perhaps related to quālus/quālum (“wicker basket”). No widely agreeable etymology has been suggested for either word, but compare Sanskrit चालन (cālana, “sieve, strainer”). De Vaan finds a connection with the root of quatio (“I shake, brandish”) conceivable.[1]
Etymology 2
Variant form of cōlon, from κῶλον (kôlon).
References
- “colum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “colum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- colum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- colum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- 6 per cent: usurae semissium (Colum.)
- “colum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
- “colum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “qualus”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 504
