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LATIN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

talus.

ankle; ankle/pastern bone; sheep knucklebone (marked for dice); dice game (pl.);

5 characters2 syllables approx.Latina language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈtaː.ɫʊs]Classical-Latin[ˈtaː.lus]
  1. the ankle or anklebone (of animals), talus; knucklebone

    declension-2
  2. an oblong die rounded at its ends and only marked on its other four sides

    declension-2
  3. the heel

    declension-2 · figuratively
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g- Proto-Indo-European *téh₂g-s-los? Proto-Italic *tākslos Latin talus From Proto-Italic *tākslos, with multiple theories proposed: * Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *téh₂g-s-los, from *teh₂g- (“to touch”) (whence tangō). * Alternatively, cognate with Sanskrit तल (tala, “plane, surface”). * From *steh₂- (“to stand”) + *-tleh₂/*-dʰleh₂ (instrument noun suffix), and directly cognate with Welsh sawdl (“heel”). This is phonetically difficult, as it requires an s-less variant of *steh₂-, as well as addition of an unknown and arbitrary suffix *-k-.

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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.