The corpus record — Latin

malleus

hammer, mallet

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Epidicus 1 · 1.54/10k
C. Caligula 1 · 1.31/10k
De agri cultura 2 · 1.28/10k
Menaechmi 1 · 1.05/10k
Octavius 1 · 0.86/10k
Ad Nationes 1 · 0.67/10k
Ab Urbe Condita, books 26-27 - 27 1 · 0.58/10k
Peristephanon Liber 1 · 0.57/10k
Apologeticum 1 · 0.5/10k
Carmina 1 · 0.45/10k
Naturalis Historia 12 · 0.3/10k
Epistulae. Selections. 1 · 0.23/10k

Densest 12 of 18 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. malleus — de Vaan

malleus 'hammer, mallet' [m. ο] (Ρ1.+) Derivatives: malleolus 'fire-dart, mallet-shoot' (Sis.+), mallo 'kind of tumour on the knees (with animals)' (Chiron.H-); marculus 'small hammer' (Lucil.+). Pit. *molalo- 'hammer', *molklo- 'hammer'. PIE *molH-lo-, *molH-tlo- 'crushing instrument'. IE cognates: OCS mlatb, Ru. molot, Cz. mlat 'hammer' < *molH-to-. Malleus could be derived from the root for 'to grind'; for the … — [de Vaan, s.v. malleus, p. 374]

2. mallĕus — Lewis & Short

mallĕus, i, m.,

I a hammer, mallet, maul.

I Lit.: (navis) excussa malleo, Plaut. Men. 2, 3, 52: malleorum rostra, Plin. 34, 14, 41, § 144: stuparius, a swingle-staff, id. 19, 1, 3, § 17.—Of the maul or axe for felling animals to be sacrificed: tempora discussit claro cava malleus ictu, Ov. M. 2, 624: elato alte malleo, cultrarium mactavit, Suet. Calig. 32.—Prov.: malleum sapientiorem vidi excusso manubrio, the hammer wiser than the handle, Plaut. Ep. 3, 4, 87.—

II Transf., a disease among animals: sunt species mallei septem, Veg. Vet. 1, 2, 1; 1, 10, 1.

3. malleus — Walde–Hofmann

malleus, -; m. „Hammer, Schlegel, Kióppel* (eit Plaut, rom., ebenso Demin. malleolus „Hämmerchen“; „Bebsenker“ [davon malJleoläris Colum.]; „Knöpfchen, an dem die Schuhbänder befestigt werden“ [Isid. 19, 34, 10]; „eine Art Knódel* [CL IV 120,1); vgl. malleätor „Hämmerer“, malleätus „mit dem Hammer bearbeitet" seit Colum., commalleö, -i0lö „schlage zur Flurkarte* Grom.; s. noch mallö): nach Niedermann IF. 15, 116 als … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. malleus, p. 922]

In the wild

malleo Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 13.12.p4
malleo Plautus, Menaechmi 2.3
malleo Celsus, De Medicina 6.7.p11
malleis Minucius Felix, Octavius 22.4
malleo Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, books 26-27 - 27 p90
malleo Cato, De agri cultura 45

6 of 30 attestations shown.

Where it came from

de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) Treated in de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) s.v. malleus (scan p. 374; entry #987). Root candidates: *molalo-, *molklo-, *malalo-.
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. malleus (scan p. 404; entry #6432).
Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. malleus (scan p. 922; entry #1666). Root candidates: *mels-, *mullo-, *maldo-.

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Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.