The corpus record — Latin

novacula

razor

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

Where it lives

Antoninus Heliogabalus 1 · 1.73/10k
Satyricon 5 · 1.64/10k
De Spectaculis 1 · 1.57/10k
C. Caligula 1 · 1.31/10k
De Divinatione 3 · 1.09/10k
Fabulae Aesopiae 1 · 0.91/10k
Metamorphoses 4 · 0.75/10k
Epigrammata 4 · 0.71/10k
Ab Urbe Condita, books 1-2 - 1 1 · 0.57/10k
De Anima 1 · 0.42/10k
Epitome Rerum Romanorum 1 · 0.38/10k
Historiae 1 · 0.19/10k

Densest 12 of 15 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. novacula — de Vaan

novacula 'razor' [f. a] (Cic.+) Pit. ^(h)nowatlo-. novem PIE *ks-n(e)-u- [pr.] 'to scrape'. IE cognates: Skt. ova ksyaumi [pr.], ksrmvana[ptcmed.] 'to whet, sharpen', °ksnut- [adj.] '-sharpened', ksnotra- [n.] 'whetstone'; k$wrfc 'razor, sharp knife'; OAv. xsnaus [3s.aor.act], xsrmruvsa [2s.pr./aor.opt.med.] 'to hear', YAv. hu-xsnuta- 'well-sharpened', OP a-xsnauvaiy/a-xsnumiy, Ί hear', a-xsnudiy 'hear!\ Instrument … — [de Vaan, s.v. novacula, p. 428]

2. nŏvācŭla — Lewis & Short

nŏvācŭla, ae, f.novo,

I a sharp knife.

A Lit.: cutem raporum novaculā decerpere, Col. 12, 56, 1; Plin. 22, 23, 47, § 99.—

B Esp.

1 A razor: ut ex novaculā comperistis, tonsor est, Petr. 103: aream (capitis) novaculā radere, Cels. 6, 4: nudare caput, Mart. 2, 66, 7: secare fauces, Suet. Calig. 23; Plin. 29, 6, 34, § 107: Tarquinius dixit, se cogitāsse, cotem novaculā posse praecidi, Cic. Div. 1, 17, 32; cf. Liv. 1, 36; Val. Max. 1, 4, 1.—

2 A dagger: stringitur in densā nec caeca novacula turbā, Mart. 7, 61, 7.—

II Transf., the name of a fish, otherwise unknown, Plin. 32, 2, 5, § 14.

3. noväcula — Walde–Hofmann

noväcula, -ae f. (-c(u)!um n. Ser. h. Aug., Cl.) „scharfes Messer*, bes, ,Scher-, Rasiermesser; Dolch; Fischname* (seit Cic., motücularius: Euponowög Cl): nach Johansson PBB. 14, 342, Kretschmer KZ. 31, 419. 470 auf Grund eines Verbums *noräre „schaben, wetzen* aus *geneuä- (W. *gs-eu-, infigiert *gs-neu-) in ai. ksnótram n. „Schleifstein*, kspäuti_„schleift, wetzt, re3bt*, PP. ksputäh (sek. nach yauti usw., Persson … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. noväcula, p. 1084]

In the wild

novacula Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 29.6.p1
novacula Apuleius, Metamorphoses 5.22
nouacula Suetonius, C. Caligula 23.3
novaculam Petronius, Satyricon 94
novacula Petronius, Satyricon 94
novacula Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.1.36.4

6 of 28 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. novacula (scan pp. 428-429; entry #1169). Root candidates: *ksneuaklo-, *ksneu-.
Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. noväcula (scan pp. 1084-1085; entry #1854). Root candidates: *geneuä-, *gsös-, *qseu-.

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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.