vadum

Latin

Etymology 1

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *weh₂dʰ-

Proto-Indo-European *-óm

Proto-Indo-European *wh₂dʰóm

Proto-Italic *waðom

Latin vadum

From Proto-Italic *waðom, from Proto-Indo-European *uh₂dʰóm (compare Proto-Germanic *wadą), from the root *weh₂dʰ-, the same source as vādō. Cognate with Old English wadan (whence English wade).

Alternative forms

• vadus

Pronunciation

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

Noun

vadum n (genitive vadī); second declension

1. A shallow, ford, shoal
   • c. 52 BCE, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de bello Gallico 1.6:

     […] alterum per prōvinciam nostram, multō facilius atque expedītius, proptereā quod inter fīnēs Helvētiōrum et Allobrogum, quī nūper pācātī erant, Rhodanus fluit, isque nōn nūllīs locīs vadō trānsītur.

     The other [route] was through our province, much easier and more unobstructed, because between the territories of the Helvetii and the Allobroges, who had been recently subdued, the Rhone flows, and that [river] is crossed by a ford in not a few places.

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.)

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

	singular	plural
nominative	vadum	vada
genitive	vadī	vadōrum
dative	vadō	vadīs
accusative	vadum	vada
ablative	vadō	vadīs
vocative	vadum	vada

Derived terms

• vadōsus

Related terms

• vadō

Descendants

• Asturian: vau
• Catalan: gual
• Friulian: vât, vâd
• Italian: guado
• Occitan: ga
• Old Galician-Portuguese: vao
  • Galician: vao
  • Portuguese: vau
• Romanian: vad
• Sardinian: badu, bau, vadu
• Sicilian: vadu
• Spanish: vado
• →? Albanian: va

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Noun

vadum

1. genitive plural of vas (“bail”)

Further reading

• “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, 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.