digitus

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin digitus. Doublet of digit.

Noun

digitus (plural digiti)

1. (historical) An Ancient Roman unit of length, approximately 0.73 inches.

Latin

Alternative forms

• dictus

Etymology

Traditionally derived from Proto-Italic *digitos, from Proto-Indo-European *deyǵ- (“to show, point out, pronounce solemnly”), variant of the root *deyḱ- that also gave Latin dīcō (“I say, speak talk”) and English toe (though De Vaan is skeptical due to the presumed phonetic processes resulting in the change of a ḱ- to a ǵ- having no other examples in Latin). Fingers were thus "pointers, indicators". The "digit" sense comes from the fact that they were used for counting up to ten.

Indo-European cognates include Sanskrit दिशति (diśáti, “to show, point out”), Ancient Greek δείκνυμι (deíknumi, “to show”), δίκη (díkē, “manner, custom”), Old English tǣċan (“to show, point out”) (English teach) and tācen (English token).

Compare similar semantic shift in English in the cognate word teacher (“forefinger, index finger”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈdi.ɡi.tus/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈdi.d͡ʒi.tus/,

Noun

digitus m (genitive digitī); second declension

1. a finger, toe
2. (mathematics) a digit
3. an inch (in ancient times, a 16th part of a Roman foot)
4. a twig

Declension

Second-declension noun.

• Note: the genitive plural digitum is attested in Vitruvius and in a fragment of Varro (quoted by the grammarian Charisius).

Derived terms

Descendants

References

• “digitus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “digitus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• digitus 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)
• digitus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to touch with the fingertips: extremis digitis aliquid attingere
    
• “digitus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “digitus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Middle English

Noun

digitus

1. Alternative form of digit