English

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Etymology

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From Medieval Latin positūra, feminine noun formed from positūrus (about to place). Doublet of posture.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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positura (plural positurae)

  1. A stroke added to a medieval punctus; a punctuation mark created by addition of such a stroke.
    • 1993, Malcolm Beckwith Parkes, Pause and Effect[1], Plates and Commentaries, page 197:
      The positurae mark those pauses in the text which require the celebrant to inflect the recitation tone []
    • 2011 July 22, Tadao Kudouchi, edited by Akio Oizumi and Jacek Fisiak, English Historical Linguistics and Philology in Japan[2], De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 172:
      The positurae thus indicated not only the "appropriate melodic formula", but also a pause and therefore a rhythmical and syntactic break which it is the primary function of punctuation to mark.
    • 2015, Benjamin Pohl, Dudo of Saint-Quentin's Historia Normannorum: Tradition, Innovation and Memory[3], York Medieval Press, →ISBN, Introduction, page 19:
      After all, it was the revision of the Cistercian liturgy that helped facilitate the widespread use of positurae, particularly the punctus flexus and punctus elevatus.

Catalan

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Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin positūra. Doublet of postura.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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positura f (plural positures)

  1. posture, position, pose
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Further reading

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Latin

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Participle

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positūra

  1. inflection of positūrus:
    1. nominative/vocative feminine singular
    2. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter plural

Participle

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positūrā

  1. ablative feminine singular of positūrus

References

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  • positura”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • positura in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.