Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In Roman antiquity: A staff with a recurved or crooked top, used by the augurs in quartering the heavens; an augural wand.
- noun An instrument of martial music; a kind of trumpet curved at the outer extremity, and having a shrill tone.
- noun A spiral of which the characteristic property is that the squares of any two radii vectores are reciprocally proportional to the angles which they respectively make with a certain line which is given in position and which is an asymptote to the spiral. This name was given by Cotes (died 1716).
- noun [capitalized] In zoology: A genus of cephalopods: same as
Spirula . - noun A genus of gastropods: same as
Cyclostoma .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A curved staff used by the augurs in quartering the heavens.
- noun An instrument of martial music; a kind of trumpet of a somewhat curved form and shrill note.
- noun (Math.) A spiral whose polar equation is r2θ = a; that is, a curve the square of whose radius vector varies inversely as the angle which the radius vector makes with a given line.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
military trumpet . - noun geometry A curve with
polar equation , where a is a constant.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This sort of staff is crooked at one end, and is called lituus; they make use of it in quartering out the regions of the heavens when engaged in divination from the flight of birds; Romulus, who was himself a great diviner, made use of it.
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003
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Three hundred years after its last sounding, a long-lost instrument called the lituus -- one of Johann Sebastian Bach's go-to horns -- is back from the dead.
Livescience.com 2009
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But the troopers were crafty, gathered every tender fern shoot they could find; to Ventidius they looked like the lituus of an augur, finished on top with a curlicue.
Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007
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He wore the red-and-purple-striped toga, and carried a staff, the lituus, topped by a curlicue.
Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007
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But the troopers were crafty, gathered every tender fern shoot they could find; to Ventidius they looked like the lituus of an augur, finished on top with a curlicue.
Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007
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He wore the red-and-purple-striped toga, and carried a staff, the lituus, topped by a curlicue.
Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007
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“Sive legas,” saith he, “sive scribas, sive vigiles, sive dormias, amor tibi semper buccina in auribus sonet, hic lituus excitet animam tuam, hoc amore furibundus; quære in lectulo tuo, quem desiderat anima tua:” Epist.lxvi. ad Pammach., cap.
Christologia 1616-1683 1965
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A Roman lituus, or clarion, was found near Tattershall Ferry.
Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter James Conway Walter
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He then fixed upon an object, as far as he could see, as a corresponding mark, and then transferring the lituus to his left hand, he laid his right upon Numa's head and offered this prayer: "Father Jupiter, if it be heaven's will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, should be king of Rome, do thou signify it to us by sure signs within those boundaries which I have traced."
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The augur seated himself on his left hand, with his head covered, and holding in his right hand a curved staff without any knots, which they called a "lituus."
vanishedone commented on the word lituus
B.B.C. News: 'New software has enabled researchers to recreate a long forgotten musical instrument called the Lituus. The 2.4m (8ft) -long trumpet-like instrument was played in Ancient Rome but fell out of use some 300 years ago. '
May 30, 2009
bilby commented on the word lituus
Wow.
May 31, 2009