Etymology 1
Neuter substantive use of the perfect passive participle of cubō (“lie down, recline”).
Noun
cubitum n (genitive cubitī); second declension
- elbow
29 BCE – 19 BCE,
Virgil,
Aeneid 4.690-691:
- Ter sēsē attollēns cubitōque adnīxa levāvit,
ter revolūta torō est [...].- Lifting herself three times, [Dido] had tried to raise upon her elbow, and thrice she had rolled back upon the bed [...].
(Fratantuono and Smith [2022], pg. 916: “The only elbow in Virgil: another graphic detail as the poet continues his emphasis on the physical.”)
- cubit (measure)
Descendants
- Balkan Romance:
- Aromanian: cot, cotu
- Istro-Romanian: cot
- Megleno-Romanian: cot, cuot
- Romanian: cot
- Italo-Romance:
- Neapolitan: gùveto, vute, ute, viute, júvete
- Old Italian: gombito
- Sicilian: gùvitu
- North Italian:
- Gallo-Italic:
- Friulian: comedon
- Istriot: cumio
- Ladin: cumedon
- Venetian: gùmio, gòmio, gòmbio, comio
- Gallo-Romance:
- Occitano-Romance:
- Old Catalan: *coude, colde, coldo
- Occitan: coide, cobde
- Ibero-Romance:
- Aragonese: coudo
- Old Leonese:
- Old Galician-Portuguese: covedo, côbedo
- Old Spanish: cobdo
- Ladino: kovdo
- Spanish: codo
- Insular Romance:
- Sardinian: cuidu, cuitu, cúvidu
- Ancient borrowings:
- → Ancient Greek: κύβιτον (kúbiton)
- → Proto-Albanian: *kuβət
- Later borrowings:
References
- “cubitum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “cubitum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- cubitum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- (ambiguous) to go to bed: cubitum ire