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cacuminous
Aug. 19th, 2010 07:45 amcacuminous (ka-KYUU-mi-nuhs) - adj., having a pointed or pyramidal end.
Like an obelisk. This apparently applies only to long thin objects. Origin is obscure -- clearly Latin, but which word? Per the OED, it's from cacūmen, tree-top -- but they think its first use is 1871, and this blogger finds a use from 1633; this dictionary of etymology traces it instead to cacuminis, limit, which I can't find in Lewis & Short. So who knows. Either way, we now know there's a word for it.
---L.
Like an obelisk. This apparently applies only to long thin objects. Origin is obscure -- clearly Latin, but which word? Per the OED, it's from cacūmen, tree-top -- but they think its first use is 1871, and this blogger finds a use from 1633; this dictionary of etymology traces it instead to cacuminis, limit, which I can't find in Lewis & Short. So who knows. Either way, we now know there's a word for it.
---L.
