English

Noun

ancilla ‎(plural ancillae)

1. A maid.
   • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin 2011, p. 306:

     ‘And pass me that towel,’ added Ada, but the ancilla was picking up coins she had dropped in her haste [...].

2. An auxiliary or accessory
   • 2009 January 23, Ryo Okamoto et al., “An Entanglement Filter”, in Science, volume 323, number 5913, DOI:10.1126/science.1167182:

     The filter achieves this two-qubit filtering effect by using two ancilla photons as probes that detect whether or not the two input photons are in the desired states.

Related terms

• ancillary

Anagrams

• aclinal

Latin

Etymology

Diminutive of ancula ‎(“maid”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /anˈkil.la/, [aŋˈkɪl.la]

Noun

ancilla f ‎(genitive ancillae); first declension

1. maid, slave-girl
2. vocative singular of ancilla

ancillā

1. ablative singular of ancilla

Inflection

First declension.

Derived terms

Related terms

• ancillātus
• ancula

References

• ancilla in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ancilla in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ANCILLA in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “ancilla”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.
• ancilla in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ancilla in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin