catena

From Medieval Latin catena, from Latin catēna (“chain”). Doublet of chain.

• IPA^(key): /kəˈtiːnə/

catena (plural catenas or catenae)

1. A series of related items.
   • 1873, Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street:

     And, on the contrary, there is a whole catena of authorities, beginning with Sir Robert Peel and ending with Mr. Lowe, which say that the Banking Department of the Bank of England is only a Bank like any other bank [...]

2. (soil science) A series of distinct soils arrayed along a slope.
   • 2000, Ewan Anderson, Middle East: Geography and Geopolitics, Routledge, →ISBN, page 55:

     The changes in soil characteristics from the crest to the foot of a slope are together known as a catena.

• catena compound

• acetan

catena (plural catenas)

1. chain

Inherited from Latin catēna.

• IPA^(key): /kaˈte.na/
• Rhymes: -ena
• Hyphenation: ca‧té‧na

• Audio:

  (file)

catena f (plural catene)

1. chain
2. bond, fetter; subordination, repression
3. tie, cord, bond
4. tether (a rope, cable etc. that holds something in place whilst allowing some movement)

• ordito

• catena in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

• ancate, catane, cenata

From Proto-Italic *katesnā, further etymology unknown. Probably connected with caterva (“crowd”) and cassis (“hunting-net”).^[1]

Pokorny derives catēna, caterva, and cassis from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to link or weave together; chain, net”), with casa as another possible cognate.^[2]

Martirosyan connects cassis and catēna with Old Armenian ցանց (cʻancʻ, “casting-net”) and derives all from a Mediterranean substrate.^[3]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kaˈteː.na]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [kaˈtɛː.na]

catēna f (genitive catēnae); first declension

1. chain

First-declension noun.

• “catena”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “catena”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "catena", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “catena”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[2], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to put some one in irons, chains: in vincula, in catenas conicere aliquem
    
• “catena”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “catena”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Borrowed from Latin catēna (“chain”). Doublet of cadeia.

• Hyphenation: ca‧te‧na

catena f (plural catenas)

1. (geology) catena (series of distinct soils along a slope)

• “catena”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “catena”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026