dorsum

Borrowing from Latin dorsum (“the back”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdɔː.səm/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdɔɹ.səm/

dorsum (plural dorsa)

1. (anatomy) The back or dorsal region on the surface of an animal.

   Synonym: back

   1. The back of the tongue, used for articulating dorsal consonants.
   2. The top of the foot or the back of the hand.
2. (geology) A ridge on a hill, or on the surface of a planet or moon.
3. (astronomy) Theta Capricorni, a star on the back of the Goat.

• dorsal, dorsumal
• dorsum sellae

• “dorsum”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “dorsum”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

• dromus, dumsor

• dorsus (masculine)
• dossum ('vulgar' form with assimilation of /rs/)

From Proto-Italic *dorsom, with no certain cognates in any other Indo-European languages. Has been linked to deorsum (“downwards”) < *dēvorsum, but their contemporaneous use suggests that one was not a phonetic development of the other.[1] A potential connection with a Proto-Celtic *dros-man, giving Old Irish druimm (“back, ridge”), is unclear.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈdor.sum/, [ˈd̪ɔrs̠ʊ̃ˑ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈdor.sum/, [ˈd̪ɔrsum]

dorsum n (genitive dorsī); second declension

1. (anatomy) the back (part of the body between the neck and buttocks)
2. (transferred sense) the ridge, summit of a hill
   • Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita I, 3:

     Quae ab situ porrectae in dorso urbis Longa Alba appellata

     This [new city] was named Alba Longa, from its position, as it lay stretched out along the ridge

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• venter

• dorsālis, dorsuālis

• Vulgar Latin: dossum (see there for further descendants)
• → Catalan: dors
• → English: dorsum
• → Esperanto: dorso
• → Italian: dorso
• → Portuguese: dorso
• → Spanish: dorso

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