camus

camus

See also: Camus

English

Noun

camus

1. Obsolete form of camis.

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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 camus in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)

Anagrams

• CUSMA, MUSCA, Musca, USMCA, musac, sumac

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French

Etymology

From Middle French camus, from Old French camus, from Proto-Celtic *kambos. Compare Italian camuso (“snub-nosed”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.my/

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

camus (feminine camuse, masculine plural camus, feminine plural camuses)

1. flat-nosed

Related terms

• camard

Further reading

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

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Latin

Etymology

From Doric Greek κᾱμός (kāmós), Attic Greek κημός (kēmós, “muzzle, nose-bag; face-mask; a female ornament”).

Noun

cāmus m (genitive cāmī); second declension

1. (doubtful) a punishment device, perhaps a kind of collar for the neck
2. (doubtful) a kind of collar for the neck, a necklace or neckband
3. (Late Latin) collar, muzzle or snaffle (as for a horse or an ass)
   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Proverbs 26:3:

     Flagellum equō, et cāmus asinō, et virgā in dorsō imprūdentium.

     A whip for a horse, and a snaffle for an ass, and a rod for the back of fools.
     (Douay-Rheims trans., Challoner rev.: 1752 CE)

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	cāmus	cāmī
Genitive	cāmī	cāmōrum
Dative	cāmō	cāmīs
Accusative	cāmum	cāmōs
Ablative	cāmō	cāmīs
Vocative	cāme	cāmī

Quotations

For the sense punishment device; necklace:

In Quintus Horatius Flaccus' Satirae or Sermones, liber I, the reading of this word is doubtful: it may either have been cāmus as a punishment device, or Cadmus as a proper noun. Compare for example:

• Des Q. Horatius Flaccus Sermonen, vol. I, ed. Hermann Fritzsche, Leipzig, 1875, page 154f.:

  „Tune, Syri, Damae, aut Dionysi filius, audes
  Deicere de saxo civīs aut tradere camo?“

• Horace Satires, Epistles and Ars poetica with an English translation by H. Rushton Fairclough, 1942, page 78f.:

  "tune, Syri, Damae aut Dionysi filius, audes
  deicere de saxo civis aut tradere Cadmo?"

  "Do you, the son of a Syrus, a Dama, a Dionysius, dare to fling from the rock or to hand over to Cadmus citizens of Rome?"

In Lucius Attius or Accius as cited by Nonius Marcellus, cāmus is interpreted as a punishment device or a necklace. See for example:

• Nonius Marcellus, De compendiosa doctrina, p. 200, line 16f. In: Wallace M. Lindsay ed., Nonii Marcelli de conpendiosa doctrina, vol. I, LL. I–III, Leipzig, 1903, page 294:

  Collus masculino Accius Epigonis (302):
  . quid cesso ire ád eam? em, praesto ést: camo collúm gravem.

• Otto Ribbeck, Scaenicae romanorum poesis fragmenta. Vol. I, Leipzig, 1897, page 202f.:

  <Séd> quid cesso ire ád eam? em praesto est: <ém> camo collúm grauem!

  Non. 200, 15 'collus masculino Accius Epigono . . .'

• Tr. E. H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, vol. II, 1936, page 426f. (Lucius Accius (or Atticus), Epigoni):

  287
  Nonius, 200, 16: ' Collus' masculino . . .–
    Alcmeo
  . . . Quid cesso ire ad eam? Em praesto est: camo
    collum graven!

  287
  Alcmaeon sees Eriphyle decked with the necklace with which she was bribed:
  Nonius: 'Collus' in the masculine . . .–
    Alcmaeon
      I'll not
  Delay to approach her. See! She is at hand.
  How heavy with the neck-band is her throat!

Descendants

• Italian: camo

References

• “camus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “camus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• camus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 251
• “camus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “camus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

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Old Prussian

Etymology

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *kamus, from Proto-Indo-European *kemH- (“to hum”), of imitative origin, see also Proto-Slavic *čьmèľь (“bumblebee”), *komãrъ (“mosquito”), Lithuanian kamãnė.

Noun

camus

1. bumblebee
   • Elbing German-Prussian Vocabulary

     Hu͡mele   Camus