vadum

From Proto-Italic *waðom, from Proto-Indo-European *wh₂dʰóm (compare Proto-Germanic *wadą) < *weh₂dʰ-, same source as vādō. Cognate with Old English wadan (English wade).^[1]

• vadus

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈwa.dũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈvaː.d̪um]

vadum n (genitive vadī); second declension

1. A shallow, ford, shoal
2. A body of water; sea, stream
3. The bottom of a body of water
4. (figuratively) a “shallow” as a metaphor for circumstances implying either safety or danger, similar to a boat in shallow water
   • 166 BCE, Publius Terentius Afer, Andria 845:

     DĀVUS: Omnis rēs est iam in vadō.

     DAVUS: The whole affair is now in shallow water.
     (In context, the idiom conveys both safety and danger — the play has reached a high point of comic tension — yet Davus is confident that things will resolve favorably.)

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• vadōsus

• vadō

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

vadum

1. genitive plural of vas (“bail”)

• “vadum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “vadum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "vadum", 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)
• vadum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.