different between speck vs modicum

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sp?k/
• Homophone: spec
• Rhymes: -?k

Etymology 1

From Middle English spekke, from Old English specca (“small spot, stain”). Cognate with Low German spaken (“to spot with wet”).

Noun

speck (plural specks)

1. A tiny spot, especially of dirt etc.
2. A very small thing; a particle; a whit.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:modicum

   • a. 1864, Walter Savage Landor, quoted in 1971, Ernest Dilworth, Walter Savage Landor, Twayne Publishers, page 88,

     Onward, and many bright specks bubble up along the blue Aegean; islands, every one of which, if the songs and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument of a greater man than I am.
3. (zoology) A small etheostomoid fish, Etheostoma stigmaeum, common in the eastern United States.

Translations

Verb

speck (third-person singular simple present specks, present participle specking, simple past and past participle specked)

1. (transitive) To mark with specks; to speckle.

   paper specked by impurities in the water used in its manufacture

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1991, Stephen Orgel, Jonathan Goldberg (editors), The Major Works, 2003, paperback, page 534,

     Each flower of slender stalk, whose head though gay / Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold, / Hung drooping unsustained,

Etymology 2

From earlier specke, spycke (probably reinforced by Dutch spek, German Speck), from Middle English spik, spyk, spike, spich, from Old English spic (“bacon; lard; fat”), from Proto-Germanic *spikk?, *spik? (“bacon”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Späk, Dutch spek, German Speck, Icelandic spik.

Noun

speck (uncountable)

1. Fat; lard; fat meat.
2. (uncountable) A juniper-flavoured ham originally from Tyrol.
3. The blubber of whales or other marine mammals.
4. The fat of the hippopotamus.

Translations

Anagrams

• pecks

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from German Speck, from Middle High German spec, from Old High German spek, from Proto-Germanic *spik? (“bacon”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sp?k/
• Hyphenation: spèck

Noun

speck m (invariable)

1. speck (type of ham)

   Hypernym: salume

Further reading

• Speck Alto Adige on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it

References

• speck in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

English

Etymology

From Late Middle English modicum, borrowed from Latin modicum (“a little, a small amount”), a noun use of the neuter form of modicus (“moderate; restrained, temperate; reasonable”) + -cum (suffix forming neuter nouns). Modicus is derived from modus (“a measure; a bound, limit”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”)) + -icus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives).

The plural form modica is derived from Latin modica.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m?d?k?m/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?m?d?k?m/, /-d?-/
• Hyphenation: mod?i?cum

Noun

modicum (plural modicums or (rare) modica)

1. A modest, small, or trifling amount.

   Synonyms: iota, jot, tittle; see also Thesaurus:modicum

   Antonyms: see Thesaurus:lot

Translations

References

Latin

Etymology

From modicus (“moderate, middling”)

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?mo.di.kum/, [?m?d??k???]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?mo.di.kum/, [?m??d?ikum]

Noun

modicum n (genitive modic?); second declension

1. a little, a small amount

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Descendants

• English: modicum

Adjective

modicum

1. nominative neuter singular of modicus
2. accusative masculine singular of modicus
3. accusative neuter singular of modicus
4. vocative neuter singular of modicus

References

• modicum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)