cestrum

Meaning

1. some tool used in encaustic painting on ivory
   Iaia Cyzicena, perpetua virgo, M. Varronis iuventa, Romae et penicillo pinxit et cestro in ebore imagines mulierum maxime et Neapoli anum in grandi tabula, suam quoque imaginem ad speculum.At Rome during the youth of Marcus Varro, Iaia of Cyzicus, who never married, made portraits both with a paintbrush and with a cestrum in ivory, mostly of women, and a large painted panel of an old woman at Naples, also a portrait of herself made with a mirror.77 CE – 79 CE, Plinius Maior, Naturalis Historia 35.147 (The artist's name here is sometimes alternatively read Lala or Laia)
   encausto pingendi duo fuere antiquitus genera cera et in ebore cestro id est vriculo donec classes pingi coepere hoc tertium accessit resolutis igni ceris penicillo utendi quae pictura navibus nec sole nec sale ventisve corrumpiturAnciently there were two types of encaustic painting, with wax and in ivory with a cestrum (that is a small skewer/spit) until fleets started to be painted. This added a third type, using a brush with waxes melted by fire: this method of painting ships is not ruined by sun nor by salt or winds.77 CE – 79 CE, Plinius Maior, Naturalis Historia 35.149

Declension

Origins

Uncertain. * Possibly borrowed from Ancient Greek κέστρον (késtron) or κέστρος (késtros, “sharpness”), from the root of the verb κεντέω (kentéō, “to prick, sting, stab”). * Alternatively, from caed- (“to cut”) + -trum, from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂id-, *kh₂eyd- (“to cut, hew”) + *-trom (“instrumental suffix”), related to Latin caelō (“carve”), caelum (“chisel”).