cunabulum

== Latin == === Etymology === From cūn(ā) (“cradle”) + -bulum (nominal suffix denoting vessel or place). === Pronunciation === (Classical Latin) IPA(key): [kuːˈnaː.bʊ.ɫũː] (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): [kuˈnaː.bu.lum] === Noun === cūnābulum n (genitive cūnābulī); second declension (especially in the plural) cradle 44 BCE, Cicero, De Divinatione, book 1, XXXVI, 79: (metonymic) nest of living things 29 BCE, Virgil, Georgics, book 4, line 66: 77–79, Pliny the Elder, Natural History, book 10, chapter 33, section 51: (metonymic) earliest abode, primary dwelling-place aft. 23 BCE, Propertius, Elegies, book 3, elegy 1, line 27: bef. 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid, book 3, line 105: (metonymic) birth, origin 44 BCE, Cicero, De Lege Agraria, chapter 36, section 100: flor. 42, Columella, Res rustica, book 1, chapter 3: flor. 163, Apuleius, Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass, book 2, section 31: ==== Usage notes ==== This word is only attested in the plural (with singular meaning—a plurale tantum) until the Late Latin period. ==== Declension ==== Second-declension noun (neuter). ==== Derived terms ==== incūnābula === References === “cūnābŭla”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press “cūnābŭla”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.