Etymology
Uncertain. Explanations include:[1]
- From a formation equivalent to Proto-Indo-European *(s)kolh₂/₃-trom, from the root *(s)kelH- (“to cut”).
- From the root *(s)ker- (“to shear, cut off”) to a preform *kor-tro- which has undergone dissimilation */rtr/ > /ltr/.
Both of the above etymologies assume a change in the suffix *-trom (and in gender), which otherwise would yield Latin *-trum.
Noun
culter m (genitive cultrī); second declension
- knife
- Synonym: novācula
- razor
Declension
Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -er).
More information singular, plural ...
Close
Descendants
- Old French: coltre, coutre
- Italian: coltro, cultro
- Portuguese: cultro
- Catalan: coltell
- Spanish: cuitre
- ⇒ Esperanto: koltro
- → Old Welsh: cultir
- Middle Welsh: culldyr, kulldyr
- → Proto-West Germanic:
- Old English: culter, cultor, cultur
- Middle English: culter, colter, coltre, coltur, coulter, cultir, cultour, cultre, cultur, culture, koltre, kulter
- Middle Dutch: couter
- Middle Low German: kolter
References
- “culter”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “culter”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- culter in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- to plunge a dagger, knife in some one's heart: sicam, cultrum in corde alicuius defigere (Liv. 1. 58)
- “culter”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
- “culter”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
- New Latin Grammar, Allen and Greenough,1903.
De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “culter, -trī”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 151
