lignum

lignum (countable and uncountable, plural lignums)

1. A perennial shrub, Duma florulenta, native to semiarid areas of inland Australia.
2. Land covered by lignum.
   • 1992, Bob Magor, Blood on the Board, page 10:

     The assembled in the lignum / Where the Boss said pigs were thick.

• muling

From Proto-Italic *legnom, from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ-no-m (“that which is collected”), from *leǵ- (“to collect”), with the Italic form interpreted as "wood collected for firemaking".

An alternative derivation from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”), and associated interpretation as "stray wood", seems equally possible, phonetically and semantically.[1]

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈliɡ.num/, [ˈlʲɪŋnʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈliɲ.ɲum/, [ˈliɲːum]

lignum n (genitive lignī); second declension

1. firewood
2. (later Latin) wood tissue
3. tree
   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Psalm.1.3:

     Et erit tamquam lignum transplantatum iuxta rivulos aquarum quod fructum suum dabit in tempore suo. Et folium eius non defluet et omne quod fecerit prosperabitur

     And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit, in due season. And his leaf shall not fall off: and all whosoever he shall do shall prosper (Douay-Rheims translation)

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Several forms inherited from the plural ligna, reinterpreted as a feminine singular noun.

• “lignum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “lignum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• lignum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• lignum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.