different between digitus vs digits

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin digitus. Doublet of digit.

Noun

digitus (plural digiti)

1. (historical) An Ancient Roman unit of length, approximately 0.73 inches.

Latin

Alternative forms

• dictus

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *dey?- (“to show, point out, pronounce solemnly”), variant of the root *dey?- that also gave Latin d?c? (“I say, speak talk”) and English toe. Fingers were thus "pointers, indicators". Digit sense comes from the fact that they were used for counting up to ten.

Indo-European cognates include Sanskrit ????? (di?áti, “to show, point out”), Ancient Greek ???????? (deíknumi, “to show”), ???? (dík?, “manner, custom”), Old English t??an (“to show, point out”) (English teach) and t?cen (English token).

Compare similar semantic shift in English in the cognate word teacher (“forefinger, index finger”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?di.?i.tus/, [?d????t??s?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?di.d??i.tus/, [?d?i?d??it?us]

Noun

digitus m (genitive digit?); second declension

1. a finger, toe, digit
2. a twig

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Derived terms

Descendants

References

• digitus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• digitus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• digitus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• digitus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book?^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
• digitus in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• digitus in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Middle English

Noun

digitus

1. Alternative form of digit

English

Pronunciation

Noun

digits

1. plural of digit

Noun

digits pl (plural only)

1. (US slang) A telephone number.

Translations

French

Noun

digits m

1. plural of digit