osculum

osculum

English

Etymology

From Latin ōsculum (“little mouth”).

Noun

osculum (plural oscula)

1. (chiefly zoology) A small opening or orifice. [from 18th c.]
2. (zoology, obsolete) One of the suckers on the head of a tapeworm.
3. (zoology) The main opening in a sponge from which water is expelled.
   • 2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, 2013 edition, Granta Books, page 29:

     Waste water was expelled through a single osculum at about 8.5 cm per second – more than eight thousand times as fast as it circulated in the chambers and 85 times as fast as it entered the sponge in the first place.

Translations

main opening in a sponge

Finnish: hylkyaukko French: oscule (fr) m German: Osculum n Irish: óisín m Italian: osculo (it) m Polish: oskulum m Portuguese: ósculo (pt) m Russian: оскулум m (oskulum) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: оскулум m Roman: oskulum m Spanish: ósculo (es) m Ukrainian: оскулюм m (oskuljum)

Anagrams

• lucumos, musculo-

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Latin

Alternative forms

• ausculum

Etymology

From ōs (“mouth”) +‎ -culum (diminutive suffix).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈoːs.ku.lum/, [ˈoːs̠kʊɫ̪ʊ̃ˑ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈos.ku.lum/, [ˈɔskulum]

Noun

ōsculum n (genitive ōsculī); second declension

1. a kiss
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 3.509:

     occupat amplexū lacrimāsque per ōscula siccat

     He holds her in loving embraces, and her tears he dries through kisses.
     (Ariadne and her husband Dionysus reconcile following his infidelity to her.)

2. a little mouth

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ōsculum	ōscula
Genitive	ōsculī	ōsculōrum
Dative	ōsculō	ōsculīs
Accusative	ōsculum	ōscula
Ablative	ōsculō	ōsculīs
Vocative	ōsculum	ōscula

Synonyms

• (kiss): bāsium n, suāvium n

Descendants

• → English: osculum
• → French: oscule
• → Italian: osculo
• Romanian: uști
• → Portuguese: ósculo
• → Spanish: ósculo

See also

• ōs

References

• “osculum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “osculum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• osculum 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)
• osculum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette