cornupeta

Meaning

1. Late Latinone terminationgoring; attacking with horns
   Quod si bos cornupeta fuerit ab heri et nudiustertius, et contestati sunt dominum eius, nec recluserit eum, occideritque virum aut mulierem : et bos lapidibus obruetur, et dominum eius occident.But if the bovine has previously been attacking with its horns, and its owner has been called to witness, and has not kept it confined, and it has killed a man or a woman: the bovine shall be stoned and its owner shall be killed.c. 347 CE – 420 CE, Hieronymus, Vulgate Exodus.21.29
   Sin autem sciebat quod bos cornupeta esset ab heri et nudiustertius, et non custodivit eum dominus suus : reddet bovem pro bove, et cadaver integrum accipiet.But if he knew the bovine was attacking with its horns previously, and its owner did not guard it: he shall pay back a bovine for a bovine, and receive the whole carcass.c. 347 CE – 420 CE, Hieronymus, Vulgate Exodus.21.36

Declension

Origins

From cornū (“horn”) + petō (“attack, assail”) + -a (suffix deriving agent nouns from verbs). The two-word expression cornū petō "attack with (one's) horn(s)" is attested already in Classical Latin (e.g. Horace Sermones 2.1.52, Vergil Aeneid 9.629). The compound adjective is used in the Latin Bible as a translation of Biblical Hebrew נַגָּח (naggāḥ, “(apt to) goring”) (which occurs in the Torah only in the two verses of Exodus cited below). The Latin translation may be influenced by Ancient Greek κερατιστής (keratistḗs), the translation used by the Septuagint, which is built on κέρας (kéras, “horn”). (Although the Latin Vulgate was intended to be a translation from Hebrew rather than from Greek, Jerome was familiar with the Septuagint and with prior Latin translations based on it.)