speculum

Learned borrowing from Latin speculum.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈspɛk.jʊ.ləm/
• (UK, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈspɛk.jə.ləm/

speculum (plural specula or speculums)

1. (medicine) A medical instrument used during an examination to dilate an orifice.
2. A mirror, especially one used in a telescope.
3. (ornithology) A bright, lustrous patch of colour found on the wings of ducks and some other birds, usually situated on the distal portions of the secondary quills, and much more brilliant in the adult male than in the female.

   Synonyms: mirror, (archaic) beauty spot

4. A lookout place.

• speculum metal

• speculum literature

• muscle up, muscle-up

• speclum (late, proscribed)

From speciō +‎ -ulum (instrument noun suffix). Compare with spectrum.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈspe.ku.lum/, [ˈs̠pɛkʊɫ̪ʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈspe.ku.lum/, [ˈspɛːkulum]

speculum n (genitive speculī); second declension

1. a looking-glass, mirror

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• speculor

• Late Latin: speclum (see there for further descendants)

• “speculum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “speculum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• speculum 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)
• speculum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “speculum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “speculum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

speculum n (plural speculumuri)

1. Alternative form of specul