lucunculus

Meaning

1. masculinethick pancake (glossed with Greek τηγανίτης (tēganítēs), the full recipe of which is described by Galen)
   Pistori nubat? cur non scriblitario, / Vt mittat fratris filio lucuntulos?Afranius, Togatae 162
   Vix Aurora novos movebat ortus, iam bellaria linea pluebant: hunc rorem veniens profudit Eurus. quicquid nobile Ponticis nucetis fecundis cadit aut iugis Idumes quod ramis pia germinat Damascos et quod percoquit Ebosea Caunos largis gratuitum cadit rapinis, mollēs gāĭŏlī lŭcuntŭlīque et massis Amerina non perustis et mustaceus et latente palma2015 translation by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, revised by Christopher A. Parrott Scarce was Aurora moving another dawn and already dainties were raining from the line—such the dew that rising East Wind poured down: the best that falls in Pontic nutteries or Idume’s fertile hills, what pious Damascus grows upon her boughs and what Ebosean Caunus ripens—free of charge descends the lavish loot. Soft mannikins and pastries, Ameria’s solidities unscorched, must cakes and pregnant dates from an invisible palm—down they fell.89 CE – 96 CE, Statius, Silvae 1.6.17 (hendecasyllabic)

Declension

Origins

From lucūns (“a type of pastry”) + -culus (diminutive suffix). Alternatively, the correct spelling has been argued to be lucuntulus, from lucūns + -ulus. Upon syncope of the unstressed vowel -u-, both of these alternatives would have merged as luncunclus, because of the Latin sound change from -tl- to -cl-.