talus

See also: Talus, tálus, and tālus

English

Alternative forms

• tallus

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈteɪləs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪləs

Etymology 1

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g-der.

Proto-Indo-European *téh₂g-s-los?

Proto-Italic *tākslos?

Proto-Indo-European *telh₂-

Proto-Indo-European *-os

Proto-Italic *tālos?

Proto-Indo-European *(s)teh₂-

Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom

Proto-Italic *tāðlo-?

Latin tālusbor.

English talus

Borrowed from Latin tālus.

Noun

talus (plural tali)

1. (anatomy) The bone of the ankle.

Synonyms

• anklebone
• astragalus

Derived terms

• talar

Translations

anklebone — see anklebone

See also

• bone

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French talus.

Noun

talus (plural taluses)

1. (geology) A sloping heap of fragments of rock lying at the foot of a precipice.
   • 1994, Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing:

     By the time he reached the first talus slides under the tall escarpments of the Pilares the dawn was not far to come.

   • 2024 May 29, Nick Brodrick, “Between a rock and a wet place...”, in RAIL, number 1010, page 39:

     Above here is what is known as a talus slope - sandstone that has gradually disintegrated and tumbled down to create a menacing sloping pile of loose rock.

2. (architecture) The slope of an embankment wall, which is thicker at the bottom than at the top.

Coordinate terms

• colluvium
• scree

Translations

A sloping heap of fragments of rock lying at the foot of a precipice

• Ahtna: tseziił
• Bulgarian: сипей (bg) (sipej)
• Catalan: talús (ca) m
• Czech: osyp m
• Danish: ur (da) c
• Faroese: urð f
• Irish: scileach m, sceallach m
• Norwegian: ur (no) c

  Nynorsk: steinrøys f

• Russian: о́сыпь (ru) f (ósypʹ)
• Slovak: suť f
• Slovene: melišče n
• Swedish: taluskon c

References

• William Duane, A Military Dictionary, p. 179.
• Talus in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Altus, Aults, Austl., Latus, Tauls, Tulsa, latus, sault

Estonian

Noun

talus

1. inessive singular of talu

French

Etymology

Unknown. Possibly from Gaulish *talutum (“slope”), derived from *talu (“front”), from Proto-Celtic *talu (“front”). Compare Latin talutium (“slope containing gold deposits”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ta.ly/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

talus m (invariable)

1. slope, embankment

Descendants

• → Catalan: talús
• → English: talus
• → Spanish: talud
  • → Dutch: talud
  • → English: talud
  • → Galician: talude
  • → Portuguese: talude

Further reading

• “talus”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Anagrams

• salut

Indonesian

Pronunciation

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈtalus/ [ˈt̪a.lʊs]
• Rhymes: -alus
• Syllabification: ta‧lus

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Dutch thallus, from Ancient Greek θαλλός (thallós).

Noun

talus (plural talus-talus)

1. (botany) thallus

Etymology 2

Learned borrowing from Latin tālus.

Noun

talus (plural talus-talus)

1. (anatomy) talus

Further reading

• “talus”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016
• Mien A. Rifai; Ratna Siri Hadioetomo; Indrawati Ganjar (1992), Kamus Mikrobiologi [Dictionary of Microbiology] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, →ISBN, page 141: “talus”

Latin

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g-der.

Proto-Indo-European *téh₂g-s-los?

Proto-Italic *tākslos?

Proto-Indo-European *telh₂-

Proto-Indo-European *-os

Proto-Italic *tālos?

Proto-Indo-European *(s)teh₂-

Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom

Proto-Italic *tāðlo-?

Latin talus

Synchronically a root tāx-, of uncertain origin. Several theories have been proposed:

• Most likely from Proto-Italic *tākslos, from Proto-Indo-European *téh₂g-s-los, from *teh₂g- (“to touch”) (whence Latin tangō). Compare Old Armenian թաթ (tʻatʻ, “foot sole, palm”).
• From Proto-Italic *tālos, from Proto-Indo-European *telh₂- (“to support”); compare Sanskrit तल (tala, “plane, surface”), Latin tollō (“to raise, lift, remove”) and lātus (“carried, borne, endured”). (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)
• From Proto-Italic *tāðlo-, from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand”) +‎ *-tleh₂/*-dʰleh₂ (instrument noun suffix), and directly cognate with Welsh sawdl (“heel”). This is phonetically difficult, as it requires an s-less variant of *steh₂- (however, see tabula).

The latter two ideas fail to explain the diminutive tāxillus and other related words, requiring the awkward insertion of an unknown and arbitrary suffix *-k-.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

tālus m (genitive tālī); second declension

1. (anatomy) the ankle or anklebone (of animals), talus; knucklebone
2. (dice games) an oblong die rounded at its ends and only marked on its other four sides

   Coordinate terms: tessera, ālea

3. (figuratively) the heel

Declension

Second-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	tālus	tālī
genitive	tālī	tālōrum
dative	tālō	tālīs
accusative	tālum	tālōs
ablative	tālō	tālīs
vocative	tāle	tālī

Synonyms

• (heel): calx, tālō (Medieval Latin)

Derived terms

• subtel
• tālāris
• tālārius
• tālō; tālōnus (Medieval Latin, from Romance)
• tāxillus

Descendants

• ⇒ Vulgar Latin: *tālōnis
  • Italo-Romance:
    • Italian: tallone
  • Gallo-Romance:
    • Old French: talon (see there for further descendants)
• Borrowings:
  • → English: talus (learned)
  • → French: talus (learned)
  • → Italian: talo, ⇒ talismo
  • → Middle French: tale
  • → Portuguese: tálus (learned)

Further reading

• “talus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “talus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "talus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “talus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • (ambiguous) the conversation began in this way: sermo inductus a tali exordio
    
• “talus”, in The Perseus Project (1999), Perseus Encyclopedia‎^[2]
• “talus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “talus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin