duodecimate

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Translingual

Etymology

From Latin duodecimatus.

Adjective

duodecimate

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    • 1966, Kenneth Frederick Gordon Hosking, Godfrey John Shrimpton, editors, Present Views of Some Aspects of the Geology of Cornwall and Devon (in English), page 69:
      At Penfoot (SX 302833) the upper horizons have yielded…the trilobites Cyrtosymbole (Macrobole) drewerensis and C. (Macrobole) duodecimate.

English

Etymology 1

From Latin duodecimatus, from duodecim (“twelve”) + -ātus (“-ate”).

Pronunciation

Noun

duodecimate (plural not attested)

  1. (rare) Synonym of duodecimvirate: a group of twelve.
    • 1851, Matthew LaRue Perrine Thompson, The Church, Its Ministry and Worship, page 95:
      We affirm, that to all eternity the apostles are to be twelve, among all the redeemed, a conspicuous, glorious, unassociated duodecimate.
    • 1924, The Pharmaceutical Era, LIX, page 565:
      There was there impanelled to serve as jurors duodecimate of “impartial and unwitting persons”.

Etymology 2

Either from the Latin duodecimō (“I take one twelfth”) or an alteration of the Latin duodecimus (“twelfth”) by analogy with decimate.

Pronunciation

Verb

duodecimate (past participle duodecimated)

  1. (rare, attested in the past participle only) To kill one twelfth of a group of people, especially by lot.
    • 1868, Sydney Punch, VIII, page 93:
      The French squadron…opened fire at a distance far beyond the range of our rifles, and the carnage in our ranks was fearful. We were being gradually duodecimated.
    • 1974, Jean d’Ormesson, The Glory of the Empire, page 298:
      The barbarians were duodecimated — i.e., one out of every twelve was beheaded.
    • 2009, Tom McMorrow, Having Fun With Words of Wit and Wisdom, page 75:
      If they had duodecimated a legion…rather than…decimate them…, two guys per unit would have had to be killed.
  2. (rare, attested in the past participle only) To divide into twelfths; to divide duodecimally.
    • 1899, Current Literature, XXV, page 116:
      He has duodecimated his difficulties by choosing twelve boy “heroes.”
    • 1928, Sir John Collings Squire, Rolfe Arnold Scott-James, The London Mercury, XVIII, page 446:
      Already [Sir James Frazer] has epitomized, and so to speak, duodecimated, the Golden Bough, while Lady Frazer has culled a florilegium from his works.
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