vallum

English

Etymology

From Latin vallum. Doublet of wall comes from this word via a Proto-Germanic borrowing from Latin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈvæləm/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

vallum (plural vallums or valla)

1. (historical, Ancient Rome) A rampart; a wall, as in a fortification.
2. (anatomy) The eyebrow.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “vallum”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Latin

Etymology

Probably from Proto-Italic *walso, from Proto-Indo-European *uh₂lso-, itself perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, wind, roll”). Compare Ancient Greek ἧλος (hêlos, “nail”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈu̯al.lum/, [ˈu̯älːʲʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈval.lum/, [ˈvälːum]

Noun

vallum n (genitive vallī); second declension

1. wall, rampart, entrenchment

Usage notes

• The nature of the root vowel (văllum or vāllum) is not properly known, though the West Germanic borrowing *wall, with a short vowel, seems to indicate the former. Most dictionaries that specify vowel length in closed syllables, especially those published in the 21st century, do not mark it as long.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	vallum	valla
Genitive	vallī	vallōrum
Dative	vallō	vallīs
Accusative	vallum	valla
Ablative	vallō	vallīs
Vocative	vallum	valla

Derived terms

• circumvāllō
• intervallum
• vallus
• vallō

 

Descendants

• Italian: vallo
• Old Occitan:
  • Catalan: vall
• Old Galician-Portuguese:
  • Galician: valo
  • Portuguese: valo, vala
• Old Spanish:
  • Spanish: valla
• → Albanian: avulli
• → English: vallum (learned)
• → Czech: val
• → Polish: wał
• → Romanian: val
• → Proto-West Germanic: *wall (see there for further descendants)

References

• “vallum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “vallum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• vallum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• vallum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to raise a rampart, earthwork: vallum iacere, exstruere, facere
    
  • (ambiguous) to fortify the camp with a rampart: castra munire vallo (aggere)
    
  • (ambiguous) to keep watch on the rampart: custodias agere in vallo
    
  • (ambiguous) to surround a town with a rampart and fosse: oppidum cingere vallo et fossa
    
• “vallum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “vallum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin