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Definitions

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In Roman antiquity: A staff with a recurved or crooked top, used by the augurs in quartering the heavens; an augural wand.
  2. n. An instrument of martial music; a kind of trumpet curved at the outer extremity, and having a shrill tone.
  3. n. A spiral of which the characteristic property is that the squares of any two radii vectores are reciprocally proportional to the angles which they respectively make with a certain line which is given in position and which is an asymptote to the spiral. This name was given by Cotes (died 1716).
  4. n. [capitalized] In zoology: A genus of cephalopods: same as Spirula.
  5. n. A genus of gastropods: same as Cyclostoma.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A military trumpet.
  2. n. geometry A curve with polar equation , where a is a constant.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A curved staff used by the augurs in quartering the heavens.
  2. n. An instrument of martial music; a kind of trumpet of a somewhat curved form and shrill note.
  3. n. (Math.) A spiral whose polar equation is r2θ = a; that is, a curve the square of whose radius vector varies inversely as the angle which the radius vector makes with a given line.

Etymologies

  1. From Latin (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “This sort of staff is crooked at one end, and is called lituus; they make use of it in quartering out the regions of the heavens when engaged in divination from the flight of birds; Romulus, who was himself a great diviner, made use of it.”

    The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

  • “Three hundred years after its last sounding, a long-lost instrument called the lituus -- one of Johann Sebastian Bach's go-to horns -- is back from the dead.”

    Livescience.com

  • “He wore the red-and-purple-striped toga, and carried a staff, the lituus, topped by a curlicue.”

    Simon & Schuster: Antony and Cleopatra

  • “But the troopers were crafty, gathered every tender fern shoot they could find; to Ventidius they looked like the lituus of an augur, finished on top with a curlicue.”

    Simon & Schuster: Antony and Cleopatra

  • ““Sive legas,” saith he, “sive scribas, sive vigiles, sive dormias, amor tibi semper buccina in auribus sonet, hic lituus excitet animam tuam, hoc amore furibundus; quære in lectulo tuo, quem desiderat anima tua:” Epist.lxvi. ad Pammach., cap.”

    Christologia

  • “A Roman lituus, or clarion, was found near Tattershall Ferry.”

    Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter

  • “He then fixed upon an object, as far as he could see, as a corresponding mark, and then transferring the lituus to his left hand, he laid his right upon Numa's head and offered this prayer: "Father Jupiter, if it be heaven's will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, should be king of Rome, do thou signify it to us by sure signs within those boundaries which I have traced.”

    The History of Rome, Vol. I

  • “The augur seated himself on his left hand, with his head covered, and holding in his right hand a curved staff without any knots, which they called a "lituus.”

    The History of Rome, Vol. I

  • “After this he goes up to the Capitol; is he not to be seen there with capis and lituus?”

    The History of Rome, Vol. II

  • “Trumpets have been found in the Dowris hoard, with socketed spear-heads, and other objects of the late Bronze Age, and they must be dated to that period; on this account the Etruscan lituus can hardly have been derived from Irish trumpets; so that it is probable that the Irish trumpets, like those of Gaul, were derived from the south.”

    The Bronze Age in Ireland

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reverse dictionary (2)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. litui
  1. lituiform

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  • bilby Wow. May 31, 2009

  • vanishedone B.B.C. News: 'New software has enabled researchers to recreate a long forgotten musical instrument called the Lituus. The 2.4m (8ft) -long trumpet-like instrument was played in Ancient Rome but fell out of use some 300 years ago. ' May 30, 2009

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‘lituus’ has been looked up 1356 times, loved by 1 person, added to 9 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 6.