colus

Of uncertain origin, though possibly related to colō (“to till, cultivate”); attempts have been made to connect it to colubra (“female serpent”).^[1][2]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkɔ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkɔː.lus]

colus f (genitive colī or colūs); variously declined, second declension, fourth declension

1. distaff: a tool used in spinning fiber, such as wool
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 3.817–818:

     Pallade plācāta lānam mollīre puellae
     discant et plēnās exonerāre colōs.

     Once Pallas's favor has been won: Let the girls learn [how] to soften wool,
     and [how] to unload their full distaffs.
     (‘‘Pallas’’ was an epithet for the patron of handicraft, the Greek goddess Athena, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. See distaff and spinning.)

2. spinning, spun thread

Second-declension noun or fourth-declension noun.

Alternative form of cōlon (“the colon”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkoː.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkɔː.lus]

cōlus m (genitive cōlī); second declension

1. alternative form of cōlon

Second-declension noun.

• “colus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “colus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "colus", 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)
• colus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “colus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “colus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin