Etymology
From pecū, via an unattested adjective *pecūlis (“belonging to one's livestock/property, own”).[1][2]
Noun
pecūlium n (genitive pecūliī or pecūlī); second declension
- private property (originally in the form of cattle, but later in the form of savings)
Usage notes
Often used in Ancient Rome to refer to the payment a teaching slave would occasionally collect from his students.
Declension
Second-declension noun (neuter).
More information singular, plural ...
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1Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).
References
- “peculium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “peculium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- "peculium", 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)
- peculium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- “peculium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
- “peculium”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “pecu”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 454