abaculus

From Latin abaculus, diminutive of abacus.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈbæk.jə.ləs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ækjʊləs

abaculus (plural abaculi)

1. (archaic) A small tile of glass, marble, or other substance, of various colors, used in making ornamental patterns in mosaic pavements; abaciscus.

From abacus (“a square board, tablet, panel”) +‎ -ulus (diminutive suffix), from Ancient Greek ἄβαξ (ábax, “board”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [aˈba.kʊ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [aˈbaː.ku.lus]

abaculus m (genitive abaculī); second declension

1. diminutive of abacus (“square tablet, panel”): abaculus
   • c. 77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 36.67:

     Tingit ars, veluti cum calculi fiunt, quos quidam abaculos appellant, aliquos etiam pluribus modis versicolores.

     The craft dyes, like they are made of tiles, those which are called abaculi, some of which are made varicolored in many ways.

Second-declension noun.

• → English: abaculus
• → French: abacule
• → Portuguese: abáculo

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