custos

Borrowed from Latin custōs.

custos (plural custodes)

1. (obsolete) A warden.
   • c. 1530, John Rastell, The Pastyme of People: The Cronycles of Dyuers Realmys, London,

     […] they were commytted to prison & put out of theyr offyces & the Constable of the Towre made custos of the citye.

   • 1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 5, p. 148,

     Mr. Tharp, the Custos of the parish, and several other gentlement, accompanied the corps.

2. (Roman Catholicism) A monastic superior, who, under the general of his order, has the direction of all the religious houses of the same fraternity in a given district, called a custody of the order.
3. (music, historical) In older forms of musical notation, an indication, at the end of a line of music, of the first note of the next line.

• custos regni
• custos rotulorum

• SCOTUS, Scouts, costus, scouts

From Proto-Italic *kustots, further etymology unclear. The proposal that it is derived from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewdʰ- (“to cover, wrap, encase”), from *(s)kewH- (“to cover, hide”) (whence Ancient Greek κεύθω (keúthō, “to conceal”), Old English hȳdan (“to hide, conceal, preserve”)) raises questions about the development of the medial /st/. Some etymologists consider /st/ to be the regular outcome in Latin of PIE *dʰ-t, based on aestās and aestus, a position which requires analyzing the /ss/ found in participle forms such as iussus and fossus as the result of analogy with forms built on stems ending in other dental consonants.[1] Alternatively, the first element has been suggested to be cognate to Proto-Germanic *huzdą (“hidden treasure”) and the second element a reduced form of Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”), as a compound *kusdʰo-sd-, though it is not clear if *-sdʰ- would be reflected as /st/ in Latin. On the other hand, Michiel de Vaan argues that, as the usual reflex of dental clusters in Latin is /ss/, it is better to analyze the /st/ of aestās and aestus as an analogical reformation, not as the regular outcome of *dʰ-t.[2] Therefore, de Vaan's viewpoint is that the /st/ in custos is unexplained and the etymology unknown.[3] More at English hoard.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkus.toːs/, [ˈkʊs̠t̪oːs̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkus.tos/, [ˈkust̪os]

custōs m (genitive custōdis); third declension

1. A guard, protector, watchman

   Synonym: appāritor

2. A guardian, tutor
3. A jailer
4. A keeper, custodian

   Synonyms: dēfēnsor, vindex, praeses, appāritor

Third-declension noun.

• custōdēla
• custōdia
• custōdiō

• Late Latin: custor (see there for further descendants)
• → English: custos
• → Finnish: kustos
• → German: Kustos
• → Italian: custode
• → Old French: custode
  • Middle French: custode

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

custos

1. plural of custo