dactylus

English

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin dactylus. Doublet of dactyl and date.

Noun

dactylus (plural dactyli)

1. Synonym of dactyl (“type of metrical foot”).
2. (marine biology) The tip of a cephalopod's tentacle club
   • 1982 April, Clyde F.E. Roper, Kenneth J. Boss, “The Giant Squid”, in Scientific American, volume 246, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 96–105:

     The distal end of the club, the dactylus (finger), is pointed and attenuated but is covered with hundreds of small suckers.

   • 2001 June, N. Neethiselvan, “A new species of cuttlefish Sepia ramani sp. nov. (Class: Cephalopoda) from Tuticorin Bay, southeast coast of India”, in Indian Journal of Marine Sciences, volume 30, number 2, pages 81–86:

     […] suckers of carpus and dactylus portions small […]

3. (carcinology) The tip of a crustacean's leg
   • 1975 November, Takahiro Fujino, “Fine features of the dactylus of the ambulatory pereiopods in a bivalve-associated shrimp, Anschistus miersi (De Man), under the scanning electron microscope (Decapoda, Natantia, Pontoniinae)”, in Crustaceana, volume 29, number 3, →DOI, pages 252–254:

     The tip of the dactylus is short and hooked, with a scoop-shaped depression on the anterior surface.

   • 2001 April, Charles Oliver Coleman, Ines Jäger, “Acanthonotozomella rauscherti (Amphipoda, Acanthonotozomellidae), a new species from the Antarctic Ocean”, in Journal of Crustacean Biology, volume 21, number 2, →DOI, pages 475–483:

     Pereiopod 1 […] dactylus with 3 pointed processes on posterior margin (Fig. 2g).

Dutch

Alternative forms

• daktylus (superseded)

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin dactylus, from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɑk.ti.lʏs/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: dac‧ty‧lus

Noun

dactylus m (plural dactyli or dactylen, no diminutive)

1. (poetry) dactyl

Derived terms

• dactylisch

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, “a finger, a dactyl”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈdak.ty.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈdak.ti.lus]

Noun

dactylus m (genitive dactylī); second declension

1. a sort of muscle
2. a kind of grape
3. a sort of grass
4. a precious stone
5. the date
6. (poetry) a dactyl (¯ ˘ ˘), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented; this came to be in an allusion to the three joints of the finger

Declension

Second-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	dactylus	dactylī
genitive	dactylī	dactylōrum
dative	dactylō	dactylīs
accusative	dactylum	dactylōs
ablative	dactylō	dactylīs
vocative	dactyle	dactylī

Synonyms

• (kind of grape): dactylis

Descendants

Descendants

• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian: dattero
    • → Serbo-Croatian: dàtulja / да̀туља (or from Venetan)
  • Venetan: dàtolo
    • → Hungarian: datolya
• Rhaeto-Romance:
  • Romansh: datla
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Catalan: dàtil
    • → Spanish: dátil (see there for further descendants)
  • Old Occitan: datil
    • Occitan: dàtil
    • → Old French: datil, date (see there for further descendants)

Unsorted borrowings:

• Catalan: dàctil
• → Czech: datle
• → Danish: daktyl, dadel
• → Dutch: dactylus
• → English: dactyl
• → Esperanto: daktilo
• → Estonian: dattel
• → Finnish: daktyyli
• → French: dactyle
• → German: Dattel, Daktylus
  • → Ido: datelo
  • → Luxembourgish: Dattel
• → Icelandic: daðla
• → Italian: dattilo
• → Latvian: datele
• → Limburgish: Daade̩l
• → Lithuanian: datulė
• → Middle Dutch: dadele
  • Dutch: dadel
• → Norwegian Bokmål: daddel
• → Norwegian Nynorsk: daddel
• → Occitan: dactil
• → Plautdietsch: Dautel
• → Polish: daktyl
• → Portuguese: dátilo
• → Russian: да́ктиль (dáktilʹ)
• → Slovene: datelj
• → Spanish: dáctilo
• → Swedish: dadel, daktyl
  • → Finnish: taateli
• → Translingual: Dactylis
• → Ukrainian: да́ктиль (dáktylʹ)

Adjective

dactylus (feminine dactyla, neuter dactylum); first/second-declension adjective

1. (New Latin) finger-like; fingered.

Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

	singular				plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	dactylus	dactyla	dactylum		dactylī	dactylae	dactyla
genitive	dactylī	dactylae	dactylī		dactylōrum	dactylārum	dactylōrum
dative	dactylō	dactylae	dactylō		dactylīs
accusative	dactylum	dactylam	dactylum		dactylōs	dactylās	dactyla
ablative	dactylō	dactylā	dactylō		dactylīs
vocative	dactyle	dactyla	dactylum		dactylī	dactylae	dactyla

Descendants

• → Translingual: Grapholita dactyla, Lepanthes dactyla, Porroglossum dactylum

References

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