digitus

English

Etymology

Borrowing from Latin digitus.

Noun

digitus (plural digiti)

1. An Ancient Roman unit of length, approximately 0.73 inches.

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Latin

digitus manūs (digit of the hand)

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *deyǵ- (“to show, point out, pronounce solemnly”), variant of the root *deyḱ- that also gave Latin dīcō (“I say, speak talk”) and English toe. Fingers were thus "pointers, indicators". Digit sense comes from the fact that they were used for counting up to ten.

Indo-European cognates include Sanskrit दिशति (diśáti, “to show, point out”), Ancient Greek δείκνυμι (deíknumi, “to show”), δίκη (díkē, “manner, custom”), Old English tǣċan (“to show, point out”) (English teach) and tācen (English token).

Compare similar semantic shift in English in the cognate word teacher (“forefinger, index finger”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈdi.ɡi.tus/, [ˈdɪ.ɡɪ.tʊs]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈdi.d͡ʒi.tus/, [ˈdiː.d͡ʒi.tus]

• Audio (Classical)

  (file)

Noun

digitus m (genitive digitī); second declension

1. a finger, toe, digit
2. a twig

Inflection

Second declension.

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	digitus	digitī
genitive	digitī	digitōrum
dative	digitō	digitīs
accusative	digitum	digitōs
ablative	digitō	digitīs
vocative	digite	digitī

Derived terms

• computō digitīs
• digitābulum
• digitālis

• digitātus
• digitulus
• digitus salūtāris
• prōferō digitum

Descendants

• Aragonese: dido
• Aromanian: dzeadzit
• Asturian: deu
• Catalan: dit
• Corsican: ditu
• Dalmatian: detco
• English: digit (borrowing)
• French: doigt
• Friulian: dêt
• Galician: dedo
• Haitian Creole: dwèt

• Interlingua: digito
• Istro-Romanian: žåžet
• Italian: dito
• Ladino: dedo
• Middle French: doigt
• Occitan: det, dit
• Old French: doit
• Old Portuguese: dedo
• Papiamentu: dede
• Portuguese: dedo, dígito (borrowing)
• Romagnolo: dòit

• Romanian: deget
• Romansch: det
• Sardinian: didu
• Sicilian: jiritu, jiditu, jitu
• Spanish: dedo, dígito (borrowing)
• Venetian: déo
• Walloon: doet

References

• digitus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• digitus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• du Cange, Charles (1883), “digitus”, in G. A. Louis Henschel, Pierre Carpentier, Léopold Favre, editors, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (in Latin), Niort: L. Favre
• “digitus” in Félix Gaffiot’s Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette (1934)
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to touch with the fingertips: extremis digitis aliquid attingere
    
• digitus in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• digitus in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin