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LATIN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cervus.

stag/deer; forked branches; chevaux-de-frise (spiked barricade against cavalry);

6 characters2 syllables approx.Latina language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈkɛr.wʊs]Classical-Latin[ˈt͡ʃɛr.vus]
  1. red deer, stag, (North America) elk

    Europe · declension-2 · masculine
  2. forked stakes

    broadly · declension-2 · masculine
  3. runaway slave

    declension-2 · masculine
  4. cheval de frise

    declension-2 · masculine
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ ? Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-wós Proto-Indo-European *ḱer(h₂)wos Proto-Italic *kerwos Latin cervus Inherited from Proto-Italic *kerwos, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱer(h₂)wos, from *ḱerh₂- + *-wós. Cognate with Proto-Celtic *karwos (“deer”), Ancient Greek κεραός (keraós, “horned”), Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćr̥Hwás (“horn”). The shift in meaning from “horned” to “deer” may be common Italo-Celtic development, compare English hart.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.