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dulmúnus

  • noun [ masculine ]
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Grammar
dulmúnus, gen. pl. dulmúna; m. The war-ship of the Greeks, which king Alfred assures us would hold a thousand men; longa nāvis. These ships were the μακρὰ πλοῖα or νῆες μακραί, generally called in Greek ὁ δρόμων, ωνος, m. the light war-vessel of the Greeks. They were the longæ nāves the long war-ships of the Romans, which had often more than fifty rowers. The Romans called their vessel drŏmo, ōnis, defining it as a fast rowing vessel, evidently deriving their word from the Greek δρόμων, Cod. Just. 1, 27, 1, § 8; Cassiod. Var. 5, 17, init. where it is described as 'trĭrēme vehĭcŭlum rēmōrum tantum nŭmĕrum prōdens, sed hŏmĭnum făcies dīlĭgenter abscondens.' Some suppose that Alfred derived his word dulmúnus from the Icel. drómundr, m. which Egilsson, in his Lexĭcon Poëtĭcum, Hafniæ, 8vo. 1860, explains 'nāves grandior, cūjus gĕnĕris tantum extra regiōnes septemtrionāles, ut in mări mediterrāneo, mentio fit,' S.E. i. 582, 3, Orkn. 82, 1, 3. Vigfusson, in his Icelandic-English Dictionary, 4to. Oxford, 1869-1874, in drómundr gives only the Latin and Greek, and O. H. Ger. drahemond as cognates. What Orosius, calls longas nāves, Alfred translates dulmúnus in Anglo-Saxon. As we read in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of A.D. 897; Th. i. 174, 4, Hét Ælfréd cyng timþrian lang-scipu ongén ða æscas king Alfred commanded to build long-ships against-, those ships, v. ÆSC IV.-Alfred, in his translation of Orosius, says
Show examples

  • Ǽr he [Ercol] ongan mid Creáca scypum, ðe mon dulmúnus hǽt, ðe man segþ ðæt in scip mǽge in þúsend manna

    before he [Hercules] began with Grecian ships, which are called dulmunus, of which it is said that one ship can hold a thousand men,

    • Ors. 1,
      • 10;
    • Bos. 33,
      • 31-33.

  • He [Xersis] hæfde scipa ðæra mycclena dulmúna in M and ii hund

    he [Xerxes] had one thousand two hundred of the large ships, dulmunus,

    • Ors. 2,
      • 5;
    • Bos. 46, 32, 33. v
      • .
    Glossārium ad scriptōres mĕdiæ et infĭmæ Latinĭtātis Dŏmĭni Du Cange, Dufresne; Francofurti ad Mœnum, 3 vols. fol. 1681, Dromōnes.
Entry information
Citation

Bosworth, Joseph. “dulmúnus.” In An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and Ondřej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014. https://bosworthtoller.com/8101.

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  • dulmúnus, n.

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