bivium
English
Etymology
Latin bivium (“a place with two ways”).
Noun
bivium (plural bivia)
- (zoology) One side of an echinoderm, including a pair of ambulacra, in distinction from the opposite side (trivium), which includes three ambulacra.
Related terms
- bivious
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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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 bivium in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)
Latin
Etymology
Substantive from bivius (“having two ways”), which is derived from via (“path, road”).
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /ˈbi.u̯i.um/, [ˈbiu̯iʊ̃ˑ]
- (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈbi.vi.um/, [ˈbiːvium]
Noun
bivium n (genitive biviī or bivī); second declension
- A place with or where two ways meet; fork in the road, crossroad.
- A pair of alternative means or methods.
Declension
Second-declension noun (neuter).
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | bivium | bivia |
| Genitive | biviī bivī1 | biviōrum |
| Dative | biviō | biviīs |
| Accusative | bivium | bivia |
| Ablative | biviō | biviīs |
| Vocative | bivium | bivia |
1Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).
Descendants
- Italian: bivio
References
- bivium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
- Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- Hercules at the cross-roads, between virtue and vice: Hercules in trivio, in bivio, in compitis
- Hercules at the cross-roads, between virtue and vice: Hercules in trivio, in bivio, in compitis
- “bivium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers