The corpus record — Latin

obeliscus

obeliscus · m

An obelisk

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

Where it lives

Divus Claudius 1 · 1.57/10k
De Spectaculis 1 · 1.57/10k
Adversus Hermogenem 1 · 0.9/10k
Res Gestae 6 · 0.47/10k
Naturalis Historia 9 · 0.23/10k

What it meant

ŏbĕliscus — Lewis & Short

ŏbĕliscus, i, m., = o)beli/skos (a small spit; hence),

I An obelisk: trabes ex Syenite marmore fecere reges, obeliscos vocantes Solis numini sacratos, Plin. 36, 8, 14, § 64 sq.; cf. Amm. 17, 4, 17; Isid. Orig. 18, 31; Tac. A. 3, 60.—

II A rose-bud (postclass.), Aus. Idyll. 14, 27.—

III A mark in books placed against suspected passages, an obelisk (†), Aug. Ep. 10, 2 (cf. obelus).

In the wild

obeliscum Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 37.5.p5
obeliscos Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 17.4.12
obeliscum Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 36.9.p1
obelisci Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 36.10
obeliscus Tertullian, Adversus Hermogenem 31
obeliscum Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 36.9.p1

6 of 18 attestations shown.

Where it came from

No etymology authority pointer is recorded for this lemma yet — an honest gap, not an omission.

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.