tomaculum.

Uncertain; probably derived in some way from Greek. * The manuscripts of Petronius and Juvenal show a variety of other spellings, including thumatula, tumatula and thymatula; C. Pellegrino, taking this family of spellings as the true reading, argued that the cited passages actually contain a diminutive derived from Greek θῡ́μᾰτᾰ (thū́mătă) (the plural of θῦμᾰ (thûmă, “sacrificial animal”). However, it is difficult to get from the long vowel in Greek θῦμᾰ (thûmă) to the short y̆/ŭ or ŏ attested by the scansion in Latin verse and required by Romance descendants that go back to a form *tomacella. * Bodel also considers these spellings to represent the original form, but favors an alternative etymology proposed by Watkins from Greek θύμον (thúmon, “thyme”). In Latin, thymum + -ātus would yield an adjective *thumātus (“made with thyme”), which would form a diminutive in the neuter as *thumātum + -ulus > thumātulum (“sausage seasoned with thyme”). Compare myrtum (“myrtle berry”) + -ātus > myrtātum, murtātum (“sausage seasoned with myrtle berries”), possibly the source of Italian mortadella. * Lewis and Short refer it to Ancient Greek τομή (tomḗ, “cutting, incision, insection”), in which case the ending is presumably the instrument noun suffix -culum. Per Bodel, the form tomācinae in Varro Res Rusticae 2.4.10, sometimes cited as an alternative derivation from the same base, is unrelated and should be emended to Comacinae.