Ligula
Ligula a Roman measure of fluid capacity, containing one fourth of the CYATHUS (Columella, R. B. 12.21; Plin. Nat. 20.36.)
It signifies a spoonful, like cochlear; only the ligula was larger than the cochlear (see Mart. 8.33 and 71). The spoon which was called ligula, or lingula (dim. of lingua), from its shape, was used like a dessert-spoon. (Cato, Cat. Agr. 84; Plin. Nat. 21.84; Mart. 14.120; Becker-Göll, Gallus, 3.293; Marquardt, Privatleben, 314.) For a drawing of the ligula, see under COCHLEAR, where the larger spoon is the ligula, the smaller the cochlear. The word is also used for the leather tongue of a shoe (Pollux, 2.109, 7.80; Festus, s. v.). (See under CALCEUS p. 335.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.