cippus

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cippus (“stake, post”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɪ.pəs/

Noun

cippus (plural cippuses or cippi)

Funerary cippus from Sidon

1. A small, low pillar, square or round, commonly having an inscription, used by the ancients for various purposes, as for indicating the distances of places, for a landmark, for sepulchral inscriptions, etc.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gwilt to this entry?)

2. (historical) The stocks.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “cippus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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Latin

Alternative forms

• cīpus

Etymology

Some offer connection with Latin Scipiō and Ancient Greek σκήπτω (skḗptō) from Proto-Indo-European *skāp- < *skeh₂p- (“rod, shaft, staff, club”), whence also Latin scāpus, scamnum, and English shaft.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈkip.pus/, [ˈkɪpːʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃip.pus/, [ˈt͡ʃipːus]

Noun

cippus m (genitive cippī); second declension

1. stake, post
2. gravestone, tombstone
3. landmark, boundary marker
4. (military, in the plural) bulwark of sharpened stakes
5. menhir

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	cippus	cippī
Genitive	cippī	cippōrum
Dative	cippō	cippīs
Accusative	cippum	cippōs
Ablative	cippō	cippīs
Vocative	cippe	cippī

Descendants

• Catalan: cep
• French: cippe, cep, cèpe
  • → English: cepe, cep
• Galician: cepo, cepa
• → German: Kippe
• → Irish: ceap
• Italian: cippo, ceppo
• Occitan: cep
• → Old High German: kipfa, chipf
  • German: Kipfl
    • → English: kipfel
• Portuguese: cipo, cepo
• Romanian: cep
• Spanish: cipo, cepo
• → Welsh: cyff

References

• “cippus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cippus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cippus 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)
• cippus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “cippus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “cippus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin