Word of the Day:
obelus
What It Means
A symbol resembling a horizontal line (–), sometimes together with one or two dots (for example, ⨪ or ÷), which was used in ancient manuscripts and texts to mark a word or passage as doubtful or spurious, or redundant; an obelisk.
A dagger symbol (†), which is used in printed matter as a reference mark to refer the reader to a footnote, marginal note, etc.; beside a person's name to indicate that the person is deceased; or beside a date to indicate that it is a person's death date; an obelisk.
Obelus in Context
“I have translated the Oxford Classical Text of C[harles] Hude (3rd edn., Oxford, 1927), except at the places marked in the translation with an obelus (†), which refer the interested reader to a note in the Textual Notes.”
Did You Know?
From Middle English obelus, obelo, from Old English obelus, from Late Latin obelus (“critical mark”), from Koine Greek ὀβελός (obelós, “critical mark”), Ancient Greek ὀβελός (obelós, “rod, spit; obelisk; critical mark”). The further etymology is uncertain; a derivation from βέλος (bélos, “arrow, dart, missile”) (from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to pierce; to reach; to throw; to hit by throwing”)) has been suggested, but the initial vowel remains unexplained. Compare obelisk. The plural form obeli is derived from Late Latin obeli, from Ancient Greek ὀβελοί (obeloí).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: obelus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “obelus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/obelus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
