Tuesday 22 December 2009

duumvir

This looks Dutch to me at first glance, but it originates from Latin:

duumvir n one of two men associated in the same office or post - pl duumvirs or duumviri - adj duumviral - n duumvirate an association of two men in one office or post; a government by duumvirs. [Origin from Latin duumviri, for duoviri, from duo two, and vir a man] Chambers, 1998

For two men associated in the same post, I want to suggest a pair like Reeves and Mortimer, but I suppose it should be men who have the exact same post, like multiple editors in a publishing house or salespeople in a shop. The "du" rhymes with "moo", so it's pronounced "doo-um-vir".

Of course, it comes from the Latin word for "man" and there is no female equivalent for this word: no "duumfemina" or "duummulier", for example. It'd be interesting to look in a more recent dictionary to see if this word has been gender-neutralised yet. I'm presuming it would be, much as something like "chairman" is referred to as a person of either gender.

I do like this word though. It sounds almost clownish: "This is Bob. He's my favourite duumvir". I wonder if I could stretch the definition to apply to siblings or other relations over the coming festive period?

3 comments:

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  2. Sorry, that was incredibly badly written. Let me try again: I like this word, not only for its double-u, but for the fact that it tells us that Pompee, Caesar, and Crassus were, by extension, triumvirs in the much more common first Triumvriate.

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  3. Absolutely! And logically this extends to other numbers as well. Girls Aloud could be a quintumvirate. Wait, that doesn't work for lots of reasons.

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