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LATIN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pilus.

"chief"; [primipilus/primi pili centurio => first/primary centurion of legion]; hair; bit/whit (thing of minimal size/value); hair shirt/garment (pl.) (L+S);

5 characters2 syllables approx.Latina language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈpɪ.ɫʊs]Classical-Latin[ˈpiː.lus]
  1. a hair

    declension-2 · literally · masculine
  2. an insignificant amount; iota; least amount

    declension-2 · figuratively · masculine
Where this word comes from

Uncertain. Older sources reconstruct Proto-Indo-European *pilo- (“hair”), with Latin pilleus (“felt cap”), Ancient Greek πῖλος (pîlos, “wool or hair wrought into felt”), Proto-Slavic *pь̑lstъ (“felt”) as cognates, but this is no longer accepted.

noun[ˈpiː.ɫʊs]Classical-Latin[ˈpiː.lus]
  1. a maniple of the triāriī; a reserve company of veteran soldiers

    declension-2
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *peys-der. Proto-Indo-European *pistlom Proto-Italic *pistlom Latin pīlum Latin pīlus From pīlum (“javelin”).

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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.