malleolus

Borrowed from Latin malleolus (“a small hammer or mallet”); itself from malleus (“a hammer, mallet”) +‎ -olus (“diminutive suffix”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /maˈliː.əl.əs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /məˈliː.əl.əs/
• Rhymes: -iːələs

malleolus (plural malleoli or malleoluses)

1. (anatomy) The bony prominence with a shape likened to a hammerhead, especially each of those at the distal end of the fibula or tibia, on either side of the ankle joint.

   Meronyms: lateral malleolus, medial malleolus, posterior malleolus

• malleolar (adjective)

• “malleolus”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “malleolus”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

From malleus (“a hammer, mallet”) +‎ -olus.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [malˈle.ɔ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [malˈlɛː.o.lus]

malleolus m (genitive malleolī); second declension

1. diminutive of malleus:
   1. A small hammer or mallet.
   2. (horticulture) A mallet-shoot or hammer-shaped slip or cutting; literally, a “little hammer.” A propagation method where a young, green shoot is harvested with a small, horizontal section of the older, woody branch still attached at the base. This “T” junction resembles a mallet — the older wood forms the “head” and the new shoot forms the “handle” — providing a sturdy, nutrient-rich base for new roots to develop.
      • 106 BCE – 43 BCE, Cicero, Cato Maior de Senectute 15.52:

        Malleolī, plantae, sarmenta, vīvirādīcēs, propāginēs, nōnne efficiunt, ut quemvīs cum admīrātiōne dēlectent?

        [On the joy of farming, and specifically the care of vines:] Do not the mallet-shoots, the sprouts, the cuttings, the quicksets, and the offshoots bring it about that they delight anyone with a sense of wonder?

   3. (weaponry) A kind of fire-dart.
   4. The tongue of a shoe buckle.

Second-declension noun.

• Balkan Romance:
  • Romanian: măior
• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian: magliolo
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Catalan: mallol
  • Occitan: malhòl
• Ibero-Romance:
  • Asturian: mayuelu, machuelu, mayuolu, mayuölu, mayuilu, malluelu
  • Galician: amalló, amalloa, amallón, malló, malloa
  • Portuguese: amalhó, malhó
  • Spanish: majuelo
• Borrowings:
• → Catalan: mal·lèol
• → English: malleolus
• → French: malléole
• → Italian: malleolo
• → Spanish: maléolo

• “malleolus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “malleolus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “malleolus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “malleolus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers