discrimen

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Latin discrimen.

Noun[edit]

discrimen (plural discrimina or discrimens)

  1. (entomology) A visible dividing line where two structures come together.
    • 1944, Charles Duncan Michener, Comparative external morphology, phylogeny, and a classification of the bees (Hymenoptera), page 173:
      Except for the coxal socket, the most constant landmarks of the subcoxal region are the midventral discrimen, resulting from the meeting of opposite subcoxae whose contiguous margins have been infolded posteriorly to form the sternal apophyses, and the pleural suture extending from the dorsal articulation of the coxa to the pleural wing process.
    • 1960, Fred A. Urquhart, The monarch butterfly, page 227:
      Mid-ventrally the sternopleurites unite in a suture, the discrimen, whose inflection forms the very high transparent lamella of the discrimen.
    • 1998, Michael Andrew Prentice, The Comparative Morphology and Phylogeny of Apoid Wasps (Hymenoptera: Apoidea), page 420:
      In a number of forms the discrimen appears to bifurcate at its anterior end, as well seen in Odontosphex.
    • 2005, David Grimaldi, Michael S. Engel, Evolution of the Insects, →ISBN, page 121:
      The eusternum may be reduced to form a tiny furcasternum (= to the portion sometimes called the sternellum) or an internal cryptosternum indicated externally by a single median, longitudinal line called the discrimen.
  2. A distinction, particularity, or distinguishing feature.
    • 1865, James Hutchison Stirling, The Secret of Hegel:
      We admit Nothing to exist; Nothing is an intelligible distinction; we talk of thinking Nothing and of perceiving Nothing: in other words, Nothing is the abstraction from every discrimen or particularity. But an abstraction from every discrimen, does not involve the destruction of every or any discrimen, all discrimina still exist; in Nothing we have simply withdrawn into indefiniteness.
    • 1998, Jan Patočka, James Dodd, Body, Community, Language, World, →ISBN, page 133:
      That is how human affectivity places us ever before us in this discrimen. The world then addresses us — affectively, in feelings, and at the same time in senses, impressions — in connection with this differentiation. Yet in the case of the animal and the child we also have to do with a world given in perception though there is no such discrimen present.
    • 1998, Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology, →ISBN:
      This stopping point is imposed by an authority: the traditional idea of philosophy (which Heidegger will later name "metaphysics"). Related to the discrimens of the phenomenological — to consider not the phenomena, but the "mode of their exposition [Art ihrer Aufiveisung] " — one must therefore conclude — as violent as the paradox may seem — that Husserl's phenomenology remains unphenomenological: "In the basic task of determining its ownmost field, therefore, phenomenology is unphenomenological [unphänomenologisch]! — that is to say, phenomenological only in intention [vermeintlich phänomenologisch]!
  3. A crisis or turning point; A situation that changes how the future will unfold.
    • 1992, Jamie Masters, Poetry and Civil War in Lucan's Bellum Civile, →ISBN, page 64:
      But civil war creates as many boundaries as it destroys: its keynote is division, and it is itself a discrimen.
    • 2003, George Hugo Tucker, Homo Viator, →ISBN:
      Indeed, as we have further suggested, this follows on also, in the eyes of the pilgrim- visitors themselves, from their own earlier moment of discrimen, at the point when the "old man'"s pilgrim-interlocutor had similarly exclaimed "O Hercules" on learning the Sphinx-like nature of the explanation being proffered to them.
  4. (theology) A pattern or organizing principle that forms the basis of moral judgements.
    • 1995, James B. Tubbs Jr, Christian Theology and Medical Ethics: Four Contemporary Approaches, →ISBN:
      Some years ago James Gustafson advanced the thesis that any comprehensive and systematic account of theological ethics must have a central "discrimen" - an organizing perspective, principle, metaphor or analogy around which it is structured. That discrimen must relate in a coherent fashion four "base points": an understanding of God and God's purposes in relation to humans and the rest of creation; an interpretation of the significance of "the world" and human life in it; an interpretation of human moral agency and actionsl and an interpretation of how we ought to make moral choices and judgements.
    • 2000, Cleophus James LaRue, The Heart of Black Preaching, →ISBN, page 18:
      The discrimen, or pattern, that each theologian eventually chooses is his or her own distinctive construal of the discrimen that guides his or her critical theological judgements.
    • 2003, William Thomas Dickens, Hans Urs Von Balthasar's Theological Aesthetics, →ISBN:
      And if we were to link this discrimen to Balthasar's synoptic judgment about what Christianity is all about, then it would be associated with humanity's participation in God as that is realized in God's incarnation in the person Jesus Christ. I do not wish to imply that these two discrimens are the only two with which Balthasar operated.
    • 2012, Michael Bywater, Big Babies: Or: Why Can't We Just Grow Up?, →ISBN:
      But if discrimen is a cardinal virtue of adulthood, the tenets of infantilism work against it. Discrimen requires right judgement; but the idea of something, even judgment, being 'right', is in profound conflict with individualism (which says I can only claim my judgement as being right for me).

Latin[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From discernō (“set apart, differentiate, decide”) +‎ -men (noun-forming suffix). First attested (indirectly) in the fragments of satirist Lucilius’s (2nd century BCE) work.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

discrīmen n (genitive discrīminis); third declension

  1. distinction, difference [2nd century BCE]
    • 4th C. CE, Nonius Marcellus, De Compendiosa Doctrina, book 4, in Bibliotheca Teubneriana, W. M. Lindsay (editor), Leipzig 1904, volume II, page 35, lines 29–30:
      Discrīmen rūrsum sēparātiō, ā discernendō, […] Lūcīlius lib. XXIX:
      et amābat omnēs; nam ut discrīmen nōn facit,
      neque sīgnat līnea alba
      Discrīmen, again, means “distinction”, from distinguishing. […] Lucilius in book XXIX:
      “and he loved everybody; for just as a white line
      makes no distinction or sign―”
    • 45 BCE – 43 BCE, Marcus Terentius Varro, De Lingua Latina 10.20(19) in Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Georg Goetz and Friederic Schell (editors), Leipzig 1910, page 178, lines 7–9:
      Nōn enim idem oppidum et Rōma, cum oppidum sit vocābulum, Rōma nōmen, quōrum discrīmen in hīs reddendīs ratiōnibus aliī discernunt, aliī nōn.
      For “city” and “Rome” are not the same, since “city” is a word, “Rome” a name, which distinction some observe when teaching these principles, and some not.
    • c. 500 CE, Prudentius, Hamartigenia 8–9:
      Bīna bonī atque malī glomerat discrīmina sordēns
      hic mundus, Dominō sed caelum obtemperat ūnī.
      This unclean world conglobates the double differences of good
      and evil, but the heavens serve the Lord alone.
    1. (Late Latin, figurative, extremely rare, only in work cited) discord, controversy, quarrel
      • Arnobius, Adversus nationes 4.33.7:
        Vulnerārī, vexārī, bella inter sē gerere furiālium memorantur ardōre discrīminum.
        They are said to get wounded, to be tormented, to wage war amongst themselves in the heat of their raging quarrels.
  2. division, separation [63 BCE]
    • 12 CE – 13 CE, Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto 1.38.61–62:
      Unde sed hoc nōbīs, minimum quōs inter et hostem
           discrīmen mūrus clausaque porta facit?
      But whence should this come to me, between whom and the enemy
           a wall and a closed gate make a very small separation?
    • 5th C. CE, Priscian (translator), Periegesis 29–33, original author: Dionysius Periegetes, in Poetae Latini Minores (volume V), Emil Baehrens (editor), Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig 1879, page 276:
      Fīnibus est Asiae latus artum lingua supernīs,
      Caspia quam mediam faciunt atque aequora pontī
      Euxīnī: locus hic discrīmen dīcitur esse
      Eurōpae atque Asiae disiungēns rūribus arva.
      The northern limits of Asia Minor have a narrow flank, a tongue,
      which the Caspian Sea and the waters of the Black Sea create
      in the middle: this place is said to be the separation
      of Europe and Asia, distinguising the country from the fields.
    1. (cosmetics) parting (of hair) [45 BCE]
      • 2 CE, Ovid, The Art of Love 2.303:
        Conpositum discrīmen erit, discrīmina laudā.
        Should the parting be arranged, praise the parting.
    2. (cosmetics, extremely rare) hairpin, bodkin that parts the hair
      • 4th–5th C. CE, Servius Honoratus, Commentary on the Aeneid 11.144:
        Discrīminat id est dīvidit: unde et discrīmen capitis muliēbris dīcitur, ex eō quod caput aurō discernat.
        Discrīminat means “separates”: whence also the discrīmen of a woman’s head is called, because it divides the head with gold.
  3. decision, judgement
    • 54 BCE, Cicero, Pro Plancio 4.9:
      Nōn est enim cōnsilium in volgō, nōn ratiō, non discrīmen, non dīligentia, semperque sapientēs ea quae populus fēcisset ferenda, nōn semper laudanda dīxerunt.
      For there is no counsel in the masses, no reason, no judgement, no diligence, and the wise have always called tolerable what the people have done, not always to be praised.
    • 1st C. CE, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Histories of Alexander the Great 4.9.23:
      Audāciae quoque, quā maximē viguit, ratiō minuī potest, quia nunquam in discrīmen vēnit an temerē fēcisset.
      The charge of recklessness, by which he thrived greatly, could be eased, because there never came to judgement whether he had acted recklessly.
  4. crisis, hazard, danger, risk [62 BCE]
    Synonym: perīculum
    • c. 52 BCE, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 6.38.2:
      Hic diffīsus suae atque omnium salūtī inermis ex tabernāculō prōdit: videt imminēre hostēs atque in summō esse rem discrīmine: capit arma ā proximīs atque in portā cōnsistit.
      He, doubting his own safety and everyone else’s, exits the tent unarmed: he sees that the enemy is close and the entire situation is in greatest crisis, and takes up arms from his nearest and guards the gate.
    • c. 100 CE – c. 130 CE, Juvenal, Satires 10.310–311:
      Ī nunc et iuvenis speciē laetāre tuī, quem
      maiōra expectant discrīmina.
      Go now and rejoice in the looks of your boy, whom
      greater dangers await.
    • 4th C. CE, Saint Jerome, Vulgate, Esther 11:8:
      Fuitque diēs illa tenebrārum et discrīminis, tribulātiōnis et angustiae, et ingēns formīdō super terram.
      That day was one of darkness and hazard, tribulation and hardship, and great panic was upon the earth.

Declension[edit]

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

Case Singular Plural
Nominative discrīmen discrīmina
Genitive discrīminis discrīminum
Dative discrīminī discrīminibus
Accusative discrīmen discrīmina
Ablative discrīmine discrīminibus
Vocative discrīmen discrīmina

Derived terms[edit]

References[edit]

  • “discrimen”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “discrimen”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • discrimen 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)
  • discrimen in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
    • just at the critical moment: in ipso discrimine (articulo) temporis
    • the position is very critical: res in summo discrimine versatur
    • to be in peril of one's life: in vitae discrimine versari
    • to risk one's life: salutem, vitam suam in discrimen offerre (not exponere)
    • to endanger, imperil a person or thing: aliquem, aliquid in periculum (discrimen) adducere, vocare
    • to recklessly hazard one's life: in periculum capitis, in discrimen vitae se inferre
    • a man's life is at stake, is in very great danger: salus, caput, vita alicuius agitur, periclitatur, in discrimine est or versatur
    • at the critical moment: in ipso periculi discrimine
    • the position is critical: res est in periculo, in summo discrimine

Spanish[edit]

Noun[edit]

discrimen m (uncountable)

  1. (Peru, Ecuador) discrimination

Further reading[edit]

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