cicatrix

English

Etymology

From Latin cicatrix.

Pronunciation

Noun

cicatrix (plural cicatrixes or cicatrices)

  1. A scar that remains after the development of new tissue over a recovering wound or sore (also used figuratively).
    • 1853, John C. Cobden, The White Slaves of England, Cincinnati: Derby, page 33:
      Here the boy was made to strip, and the commissioner, Mr Symonds, found a large cicatrix likely to have been occasioned by such an instrument...
    • 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter II, in Capricornia, page 21:
      He stopped to stare at two old men who sat beside the fire, naked and daubed with red and white ochre and adorned about arms and legs and breasts with elaborate systems of cicatrix.

Derived terms

Translations

Latin

Etymology

Unknown etymology, possibly from a substrate.

Pronunciation

Noun

cicātrīx f (genitive cicātrīcis); third declension

  1. scar
    • c. 4 BCE – 65 CE, Seneca the Younger, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium 1.2.3:
      Nihil aequē sānitātem impedit quam remediōrum crēbra mūtātiō; nōn venit vulnus ad cicātrīcem in quō medicāmenta temptantur.
      Nothing hinders recovery so much as frequent changes of remedies; a wound does not form into a scar when [varied] drugs are tried.
      (In other words, such a wound will not heal.)

Declension

Third-declension noun.

singular plural
nominative cicātrīx cicātrīcēs
genitive cicātrīcis cicātrīcum
dative cicātrīcī cicātrīcibus
accusative cicātrīcem cicātrīcēs
ablative cicātrīce cicātrīcibus
vocative cicātrīx cicātrīcēs

Derived terms

Descendants

References

  • cicatrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • cicatrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • cicatrix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
    • wounds (scars) on the breast: vulnera (cicatrices) adversa (opp. aversa)
    • to open an old wound: refricare vulnus, cicatricem obductam