# dorsum
## English
### Etymology

Borrowing from Latin dorsum (“the back”).

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈdɔː.səm/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈdɔɹ.səm/

### Noun

dorsum (plural dorsa)
* (anatomy) The back or dorsal region on the surface of an animal.
    Synonym: back
** The back of the tongue, used for articulating dorsal consonants.
** The top of the foot or the back of the hand.
* (geology) A ridge on a hill, or on the surface of a planet or moon.
* (astronomy) Theta Capricorni, a star on the back of the Goat.

#### Related terms

* dorsal, dorsumal
* dorsum sellae

#### Translations
### References

* “dorsum”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* “dorsum”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

### Anagrams

* dromus, dumsor

## Latin
### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈdor.sum/, [ˈd̪ɔrs̠ʊ̃ˑ]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈdor.sum/, [ˈd̪ɔrsum]

### Etymology 1

From Proto-Italic *dorsom, probably derived from deorsum (“downwards”) < *dēvorsum, with a semantic shift from "turned away from" > "back". Ramat notes that the two terms' contemporaneous use suggests that one was not a phonetic development of the other; however, de Vaan explains this as a case of lexical differentiation in the written and by extension spoken forms. A potential connection with a Proto-Celtic *dros-man, giving Old Irish druimm (“back, ridge”), is unclear.

#### Alternative forms

* dorsus
* dossum (late, proscribed)

#### Adverb

dorsum (not comparable)
* down, downwards, beneath, below; (motion/direction/order); in a lower situation

#### Noun

dorsum n (genitive dorsī); second declension
* (anatomy) the back (part of the body between the neck and buttocks)
* (transferred sense) the ridge, summit of a hill, a reef in the sea; any elevation
** 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.108–110:Trīs Notus abreptās in saxa latentia torquet — saxa vocant Italī mediīs quae in flūctibus ārās — dorsum immāne marī summō [...].Three [ships] were taken away [by] the Southwind, hurled into hidden rocks – rocks the Italians call the Altars, which [are] in the middle of the waves – a vast reef near the surface of the sea. (This “vast reef” or “huge ridge” posed a hidden danger; understood more imaginatively, a “monstrous spine” of rock destroyed the ships. Notus was the Greek south wind.)
** 27 BCE – 25 BCE, Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita I.3:Quae ab situ porrectae in dorso urbis Longa Alba appellataThis [new city] was named Alba Longa, from its position, as it lay stretched out along the ridge

##### Inflection

Second-declension noun (neuter).

##### Derived terms

* dorsālis
* dorsō
* Dorsō
* dorsuālis

##### Descendants

* Vulgar Latin: dossum (see there for further descendants)
* → Catalan: dors
* → English: dorsum
* → Esperanto: dorso
* → Italian: dorso
* → Portuguese: dorso
* → Spanish: dorso

#### References

* https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/other/673/?h=dorsum
* https://outils.biblissima.fr/en/collatinus-web/
* “dorsum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “dorsum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* "dorsum", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
* dorsum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* ↑ Ramat, The Indo-European Languages
* ↑ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “dorsum”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 180

### Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

#### Adverb

dorsum (not comparable)
* Alternative form of deorsum (“down”)

#### References

* “deorsum” in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present