cognomen
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɒɡˈnoʊ.mən/
Forms: form: cognomens
form: cognomina
Etymology: From Latin cognōmen, from con- (“with”) + nōmen (“name; family name”).
Senses: examples: text: Julius Caesar's actual name was Gaius Iulius Caesar. Gaius was his praenomen or forename, Iulius his nomen or surname, and Caesar his cognomen, denoting which part of the Iulius family he belonged to.
text: "Five hundred years or more afterwards, the family migrated to Rome under circumstances of which no trace remains, and here, probably with the idea of preserving the idea of vengeance which we find set out in the name of Tisisthenes, they appear to have pretty regularly assumed the cognomen of Vindex, or Avenger."
ref: 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
text: The Romans evolved a quite different system of nomenclature, which in its classical form consisted of three names, the praenomen (e.g. Marcus), nomen (e.g. Tullius), and cognomen (e.g. Cicero), and two other designations (the name of the father and of the tribe): […]
ref: 1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xiv:
text: Roman tradition suggests that he might also have had the cognomen Octavian to indicate his biological family.
ref: 2007, David Potter, chapter 1, in The Emperors of Rome, page 36:
glosses: A personal epithet or clan name added to the given name and family name of Ancient Romans.
examples: text: In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow[…]. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person.
ref: 1820, Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, published 1864:
text: Her husband was evidently a sensible man, and he might have given his wife a little more sense than she could have derived from her downright father and her silly mother-in-law, who were really as great a pair of noodles as ever were exhibited in the pages of a modern novel, under the cognomen of "amiable rustics."
ref: 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVIII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 237:
glosses: Synonym of nickname, any epithet used similar to the Roman cognomina.
synonyms: word: nickname
word: any epithet used similar to the Roman cognomina
examples: text: What's in a name? Well, to the Dragons, it would seem rather a lot, as they've tonight committed their cash to personalised products and to the man with the most famous cognomen in confectionery. I'll leave you to look that one up.
ref: 2018 December 23, Dragons' Den, spoken by Evan Davis:
glosses: Synonym of surname, a family name.
synonyms: word: surname
extra: a family name
Synonyms: sense: Roman clan name or epithet
english: increasingly uncommon
translation: increasingly uncommon
word: surname
Coordinate terms: sense: Roman clan name or epithet
english: given name
translation: given name
word: praenomen
sense: Roman clan name or epithet
english: family name
translation: family name
word: nomen
sense: Roman clan name or epithet
english: epithet
translation: epithet
word: agnomen
Related terms: cognominal