culmen

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English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin culmen (apex, acme).

Noun

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culmen (plural culmens or culmina)

  1. Top; summit.
    Synonyms: top, summit, acme; see also Thesaurus:summit
    • 1681, Balm from Gilead:
      the Shibboleth and Culmen of Honesty
  2. (zoology) The dorsal ridge of a bird's bill.
    • 1997 June 20, “A Role for Ecotones in Generating Rainforest Biodiversity”, in Science[1], volume 276, number 5320, →DOI, pages 1855–1857:
      The measurements were taken as follows: wing length, from the carpal joint to the tip of the longest primary; tarsus length, from the tibiotarsal joint to the distal undivided scute; upper mandible length, the chord length from the point where the culmen enters the feathers of the head to the tip; bill depth, in the vertical plane level at the anterior edge of the nares.
    • 1910, Alfred M. Tozzer, Glover M. Allen, Animal Figures in the Maya Codices[2]:
      A very simple form was found in the carving shown in Pl. 17, fig. 13, where a long projecting knob is seen at the base of the culmen.

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Latin

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Etymology

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From Proto-Italic *kolamen, from Proto-Indo-European *kelH- (to rise, be tall). Doublet of columen.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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culmen n (genitive culminis); third declension

  1. stalk
  2. top, roof, summit, peak
    Synonyms: cacūmen, apex, vertex, fastīgium, summitās
    Antonym: fundus
  3. (figuratively) height, acme

Declension

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Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

Case Singular Plural
Nominative culmen culmina
Genitive culminis culminum
Dative culminī culminibus
Accusative culmen culmina
Ablative culmine culminibus
Vocative culmen culmina

Descendants

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References

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  1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “columen, -inis (> Derivatives: culmen, -inis)”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 127

Further reading

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  • culmen”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • culmen”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • culmen 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)
  • culmen in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book[3], London: Macmillan and Co.
    • the summits of the Alps: culmina Alpium
  • Collins Latin Dictionary, →ISBN

Spanish

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Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin culmen. Doublet of cumbre.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈkulmen/ [ˈkul.mẽn]
  • Rhymes: -ulmen
  • Syllabification: cul‧men

Noun

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culmen m (plural cúlmenes)

  1. height, epitome, high point

Further reading

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