duodecimate
Translingual edit
Etymology edit
From Latin duodecimatus.
Adjective edit
duodecimate
- This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text
{{rfdef}}.- 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 edit
Etymology 1 edit
From Latin duodecimatus, from duodecim (“twelve”) + -ātus (“-ate”).
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dyo͞o'ōdĕʹsĭmət, IPA(key): /ˌdjuːəʊˈdɛsɪmət/
Noun edit
duodecimate (plural not attested)
- (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 [a] duodecimate of “impartial and unwitting persons”.
Etymology 2 edit
Either from the Latin duodecimō (“I take one twelfth”) or an alteration of the Latin duodecimus (“twelfth”) by analogy with decimate.
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dyo͞o'ōdĕʹsĭmāt, IPA(key): /ˌdjuːəʊˈdɛsɪmeɪt/
Verb edit
duodecimate (past participle duodecimated)
- (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 [fewer] guys per unit would have had to be killed.
- (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.