sīcīlis¹

Meaning

1. rarespearhead
   i͞ncēdi͞t vēle͞s vo͞lgō sīcīlĭbŭs lātīsthe skirmisher advances all over with broad/widespread spearheads239 BCE – 169 BCE, Ennius, Annales 479 (fragment per Paul the Deacon's epitome of Festus, glossed there as "hastarum spicula lata". Some manuscripts instead use the spelling "sicilīcibus", but this seems to be a corruption.)

Declension

Origins

Proto-Indo-European *-elis Proto-Italic *-elis Latin -ilis Latin -īlis Latin sīcīlis From sīca + -īlis.

Meaning

1. feminineraresickle
   Inrumpit autem artis faucibus et in longitudinem spatiosis, atque ubi coepit in latitudinem pandi lunatis obliquatur cornibus, velut ad Maeotium lacum ab ore descendens, sicilis, ut auctor est M. Varro, similitudine.1942 translation by H. Rackham Its waters make their way into this sea by a narrow mouth of considerable length; and where it begins to widen out it curves obliquely with crescent-shaped horns, as though descending from the mouth to the Sea of Azov, in the likeness of a sickle, as Marcus Varro states.Gaius Plinius Secundus, Naturalis Historia 6.38

Declension

Origins

Sometimes assumed to be from secō (“cut”, verb), with a change of vowel quality. Varro associates siciliō with sectiō. Compare sēcula. Others, such as De Vaan 2008 and the OLD 1968-1982, assume that the word for "sickle" is the same as Ennius's identically spelled sīcīlis "blade, spearhead", from sīca (“dagger”) (with no relationship to secō). There is no evidence within Latin that directly confirms the length of the vowels in the first two syllables of the "sickle" word (its diminutive sicilicula is attested in Plautus in a context where the meter could allow either sīcīlĭcŭla, sĭcĭlĭcŭla or sīcĭlĭcŭla). The pronunciation sĭcĭlis, starting with two short syllables, is indirectly attested by the pronunciation of descendant words with the same meaning in Romance languages.