different between cacuminous vs acuminous

English

Etymology

cac?min- (the stem of the Latin cac?men (“tree-top”)) + -ous

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: k?kyo?o?m?n?s, IPA^(key): /k??kju?m?n?s/

Adjective

cacuminous (not comparable)

1. (rare) Having a pyramidal top.

   Cleopatra’s Needles are three cacuminous monoliths first erected in Ancient Egypt over a thousand years before the birth of Christ.

   • 1597: John Hoskyns’ “A Tuftafffeta Speech”, printed in Sir Benjamin Rudyerd’s 1660 Le Prince d’Amour, and reprinted on page 100 of Louise Brown Osborn’s 1937 The Life, Letters, and Writings of John Hoskyns, 1566–1638 (published by the Yale University Press)

     [A]s the snow advanced vpon y? poynts vertical of cacuminous mountains dissolveth and discoagulateth it self into humorous liquidity[.]

   • 1834: James Atkinson, Medical Bibliography, s.v. “Acerbi Joseph”, page 165

     Equally so as it ha been in his own, over the estuous rivers of Lapland, or its frozen and cacuminous mountains;

   • ante 1879: Mortimer Collins, Pen Sketches by a Vanished Hand, volume 1, page 248

     Luminous books (not voluminous) To read under beech-trees cacuminous.

Related terms

• cacuminal
• cacuminate
• cacumination

Translations

References

• “cacuminous, a.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]

English

Adjective

acuminous (comparative more acuminous, superlative most acuminous)

1. Characterized by acumen; keen.