decuman

English

Etymology

From Latin decumānus (“of the tenth, and by metonymy, large”), from decem (“ten”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɛkjʊmən/

Adjective

decuman (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Large; chief; applied to an extraordinary billow, supposed by some to be every tenth in sequence.
   • c. 1870, Frederic Farrar, The witness of history to Christ; 5 sermons, being the Hulsean lects. for 1870:

     decuman billows

2. (historical) Connected with the principal gate of an Ancient Roman camp, near which the tenth cohort of the legion was stationed.

Noun

decuman (plural decumans)

1. (obsolete) An extraordinarily large billow.
   • 1870, James Russell Lowell, The Cathedral:

     the baffled decuman

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “decuman”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• mancude