peculium

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin peculium. See peculiar.

Noun

peculium (plural peculia)

1. (law, historical) The savings of a son or a slave, with the father's or master's consent; a little property or stock of one's own.

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

2. A special fund for private and personal uses.
   • Sir Walter Scott

     Still, however, he gained something, and it was the glory of his heart to carry it to Mr MacMorlan weekly, a slight peculium only subtracted, to supply his snuff-box and tobacco-pouch.

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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 “peculium”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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Latin

Etymology

(deprecated template usage)

From pecū.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /peˈkuː.li.um/, [pɛˈkuːlʲiʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /peˈku.li.um/, [peˈkuːlium]

Noun

pecūlium n (genitive pecūliī or pecūlī); second declension

1. private property (originally in the form of cattle, but later in the form of savings)

Usage notes

Often used in Ancient Rome to refer to the payment a teaching slave would occasionally collect from his students.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pecūlium	pecūlia
Genitive	pecūliī pecūlī1	pecūliōrum
Dative	pecūliō	pecūliīs
Accusative	pecūlium	pecūlia
Ablative	pecūliō	pecūliīs
Vocative	pecūlium	pecūlia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Derived terms

• pecūliāris
• pecūlor

Related terms

• pecus
• pecūnia

Descendants

• Aromanian: piculj, piculjiu
• Catalan: peculi
• French: pécule
• Italian: peculio

• Portuguese: peculio
• Romanian: peculiu
• Sardinian: peculiu, pecuiu
• Spanish: peculio, pecunio, pegullo

References

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