cervix

Borrowed from Latin cervīx (“neck”), see below.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsɜː.vɪks/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsɝ.vɪks/

cervix (plural cervixes or cervices)

1. (anatomy) The neck.
   • 1979, Clive Sinclair, Hearts of Gold, Penguin, published 1983, page 10:

     I put my hands on Madeleine's hot cheeks, making a prize cup of my hands and her cervix, and tilted her head to one side.

2. (anatomy) The necklike portion of an organ or part of the body.
3. (now specifically) The cervix uteri, or lower, narrow portion of the uterus where it joins with the top end of the vagina.
   • 2023 January 23, Anna Bawden, The Guardian:

     Screening involves taking a small sample of cells from the cervix and looking for high-risk HPV that could develop into cancer if left untreated.

Borrowed from Latin cervīx, see below.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɛr.vɪks/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cer‧vix

cervix m (plural cervixen or cervices, diminutive cervixje n)

1. neck
2. the cervix between the uterus and the vagina

• (neck): nek, hals
• (uterus portion): baarmoederhals

• cervicaal

According to one hypothesis, from Proto-Italic *kerweiks, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂(s)weyk-s, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂-(s-) (“the head”) (compare cerebrum) and *weyk- (“to curve, bend”) (compare vinciō), literally “where the head turns”. De Vaan rejects this etymology, calling it "semantically very doubtful".^[1] For the hypothesized sense development, compare Proto-Slavic *vortъ (“neck”) from Proto-Slavic *vortiti (“to turn, return”), from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn, rotate”); Proto-Slavic *kъrkъ (“neck”) (<< Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”)). Also compare collum.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkɛr.wiːks]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈt͡ʃɛr.viks]

cervīx f (genitive cervīcis); third declension

1. (anatomy, zootomy) neck, nape, throat

   Synonym: collum

   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 4.415–416:

     apta iugō cervīx nōn est feriendā secūrī:
     vīvat et in dūrā saepe labōret humō.

     The neck suitable for the yoke should not be struck by the axe:
     may it live long and labor often in the hard soil.
     (Agriculture dawns as Ceres teaches humans to yoke oxen to the plow and instead use other animals for sacrificial rites. See Ceres (mythology).)

   • 30 BCE – 16 BCE, Propertius, Elegies 3.17–18:

     levis odorato cervix manabit olivo
     et feries nudos veste fluente pedes

     Your smooth throat glistening with scented oil
     the flowing robe will brush your naked feet.

2. (figuratively)
   1. great burden, danger (from the figure taken from bearing the yoke)
   2. boldness, headstrong behavior
3. (transferred sense) (of an object) neck

Often used in the plural with singular meaning:

44 BCE – 43 BCE, Cicero, Philippics:

Consules designati negabant se audere in senatum venire; patriae liberatores urbe carebant ea, cuius a cervicibus iugum servile deiecerant.

The consuls-elect said they did not dare attend the senate. The liberators of their native land were parted from the very city from whose neck they had cast off the yoke of slavery.

Third-declension noun.

• “cervix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cervix”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "cervix", 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)
• cervix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to break a person's neck: cervices (in Cic. only in plur.) frangere alicui or alicuius
    
  • a sword hangs over his neck: gladius cervicibus impendet
    
  • the foe is at our heels, is upon us: hostis in cervicibus alicuius est
    
  • to shake off the yoke of slavery: iugum servile a cervicibus deicere (Phil. 1. 2. 6)
    
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “cervīx”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 2: C Q K, page 613

Borrowed from French cérvix.

cervix n (uncountable)

1. cervix