crinis

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *kriznis, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate with Latin crista, crispus (“curly”) and Albanian krip.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈkriː.nis/, [ˈkriːnɪs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkri.nis/, [ˈkriːnis]

Noun

crīnis m (genitive crīnis); third declension

1. hair of the head, lock of hair, plume
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.698-699:

     Nōndum illī flāvum Prōserpina vertice crīnem
     abstulerat, Stygiōque caput damnāverat Orcō.

     Proserpina had not yet taken that lock of blonde hair from [Dido’s] head, [nor] condemned [the queen’s] life to Stygian Orcus.
     (Frieze, Henry [1876], Virgil’s Aeneid, 2nd ed., pg 463: “A lock of hair is cut from the forehead of the dying as a sign of dedication to the gods below.”)

2. tail of a comet

References

• “crinis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “crinis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• crinis 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)
• crinis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to grow one's hair, beard long: promittere crinem, barbam
    
  • with dishevelled hair: passis crinibus
    
• “crinis”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
• “crinis”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin