English

Noun

culmen ‎(plural culmens or culmina)

1. top; summit; acme

   (Can we find and add a quotation of R. North to this entry?)

2. (zoology) The dorsal ridge of a bird's bill.
   • 1997 June 20, “A Role for Ecotones in Generating Rainforest Biodiversity”, in Science, volume 276, number 5320, DOI:10.1126/science.276.5320.1855, pages 1855-1857:

     The measurements were taken as follows: wing length, from the carpal joint to the tip of the longest primary; tarsus length, from the tibiotarsal joint to the distal undivided scute; upper mandible length, the chord length from the point where the culmen enters the feathers of the head to the tip; bill depth, in the vertical plane level at the anterior edge of the nares.

   • 1910, Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen, Animal Figures in the Maya Codices:

     A very simple form was found in the carving shown in Pl. 17, fig. 13, where a long projecting knob is seen at the base of the culmen.

References

• culmen in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *kolamen, from Proto-Indo-European *kelH-. Doublet of columen.

Noun

culmen n ‎(genitive culminis); third declension

1. stalk
2. top, roof, summit
3. (figuratively) height, acme

Inflection

Third declension neuter.

Descendants

References

• culmen in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• culmen in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• CULMEN in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “culmen”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.
• Meissner, Carl; Auden, Henry William (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the summits of the Alps: culmina Alpium
    
• Collins Latin Dictionary, ISBN 978-0-00-722439-5

Spanish

Noun

culmen m ‎(plural cúlmenes)

1. height, epitome, high point