cognomen
/kɒɡˈnoʊ.mən/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.80 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A personal epithet or clan name added to the given name and family name of Ancient Romans.
Example Sentences
- "Julius Caesar's actual name was Gaius Iulius Caesar. Gaius was his praenomen or forename, Iulius his nomen or surname, and Caesar his cognomen, denoting which part of the Iulius family he belonged to."
- ""Five hundred years or more afterwards, the family migrated to Rome under circumstances of which no trace remains, and here, probably with the idea of preserving the idea of vengeance which we find set out in the name of Tisisthenes, they appear to have pretty regularly assumed the cognomen of Vindex, or Avenger.""
- "The Romans evolved a quite different system of nomenclature, which in its classical form consisted of three names, the praenomen (e.g. Marcus), nomen (e.g. Tullius), and cognomen (e.g. Cicero), and two other designations (the name of the father and of the tribe): […]"
- "Roman tradition suggests that he might also have had the cognomen Octavian to indicate his biological family."
- "In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow[…]. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person."
- "Her husband was evidently a sensible man, and he might have given his wife a little more sense than she could have derived from her downright father and her silly mother-in-law, who were really as great a pair of noodles as ever were exhibited in the pages of a modern novel, under the cognomen of "amiable rustics.""
Etymology
From Latin cognōmen, from con- (“with”) + nōmen (“name; family name”).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: cognōmen
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kɒɡˈnoʊ.mən/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
byname
surname
to-name
nickname
any epithet used similar to the Roman cognomina
family name
last name
moniker
sobriquet
soubriquet