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-ulus. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
-ulus, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
-ulus in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
-ulus you have here. The definition of the word
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Translingual
Etymology
From Latin -ulus (diminutive suffix).
Suffix
-ulus
- (taxonomy) used to form genus names, especially from other genus names, indicating smaller size
Latin
Etymology
From Proto-Italic *-elos (whence Faliscan -𐌄𐌋𐌏𐌔 (-elos)), from Proto-Indo-European *-elós, thematized from Proto-Indo-European *-lós.[1]
Cognate with Proto-Germanic *-ilaz and *-ulaz, whence no longer productive English -le (as in dimple and nozzle), Dutch -el, German -el.
Pronunciation
Suffix
-ulus (feminine -ula, neuter -ulum); first/second-declension suffix
- Used to form a diminutive of a noun, indicating small size or youth.
- Used to form a diminutive of an adjective with diminished effect, indicating “somewhat” or “-ish”.
- Used to form an agent noun or adjective from a verb.
Usage notes
The suffix -ulus is added to a noun to form a diminutive of that noun. Latin diminutives typically match the gender of the base word.
- Examples:
- rēx m (“king”) + -ulus → rēgulus m (“prince, petty king”)
- virga f (“twig, rod, switch, staff”) + -ulus → virgula f (“little twig, small rod, wand”)
- oppidum n (“town, settlement”) + -ulus → oppidulum n (“small town or settlement, village”)
- calx f (“limestone, game counter”) + -ulus → calculus m (“pebble, little stone”)
The allomorph -olus, -ola, -olum is regularly used to form diminutives of nouns ending in -ius, -ia, -ium, -eus, -ea, -eum.
When added to an adjective, it forms a diminutive of that adjective:
- albus (“white”) + -ulus → albulus (“whitish”, literally “a little white”)
When added to a verb, it forms an adjective with the relational meaning “doing …” or “tending to …”:
- tremō (“tremble”) + -ulus → tremulus (“trembling, tending to tremble”)
- crēdō (“believe”) + -ulus → crēdulus (“believing, tending to believe”)
Declension
First/second-declension adjective.
Derived terms
Descendants
References
- ^ de Goede, Tim (2014) de Vaan, Michiel, editors, Derivational Morphology: New Perspectives on the Italo-Celtic Hypothesis (Research master thesis), Leiden University, pages 14-15