dentifrangibulum

Coined by Plautus, from dēns (“tooth”) +‎ frangō (“break”) +‎ -bulum (suffix forming instrument nouns).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /den.ti.franˈɡi.bu.lum/, [d̪ɛn̪t̪ɪfräŋˈɡɪbʊɫ̪ʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /den.ti.franˈd͡ʒi.bu.lum/, [d̪en̪t̪ifrän̠ʲˈd͡ʒiːbulum]

dentifrangibulum n (genitive dentifrangibulī); second declension

1. (hapax, humorous) fist
   • c. 190 BCE, Plautus, Bacchides 594–596:

     Pist. At scīn quam īrācundus siem? Nē tibi hercle haud longē est os ab īnfortūniō, ita dentifrangibula haec meīs manibus gestiunt.

     Pist. Do you know how short-tempered I am? Your mouth, by Hercules, is hardly far away from a mishap, so much are these fists stirring in my hands.

Second-declension noun (neuter).

dentifrangibulum

1. accusative singular of dentifrangibulus

• dentifrangibulus

• “dentĭfrangĭbŭlus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• dentĭfrangĭbŭlum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “dentifrangibulus” in volume 5,1, column 549, line 17 in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present