sustentaculum

From Latin sustentaculum; compare sustentate. Attested since the eighteenth century.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌsʌstɛnˈtakjʊləm/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌsəstɛnˈtækjələm/

sustentaculum (plural sustentacula or sustentaculums)

1. (anatomy, zoology) A supporting structure, a body part that supports one or more other parts.
   • 1818, Daniel John Cunningham, Cunningham's Textbook of Anatomy‎, page 355:

     The ligamentum talocalcaneum mediale lies obliquely on the medial side of the joint, and consists of fibres which extend from the medial posterior tubercle of the talus to the posterior roughened border of the sustentaculum tali.

   • 1912, William Berryman Scott, Toxodonta (Reports of the Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia, 1896-1899), volume 6, page 171:

     While of only moderate size, the sustentaculum is very thick and prominent; its astragalar facet is of irregularly oval shape and nearly plane.

• “sustentaculum, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2012.

From sustentō.

sustentāculum n (genitive sustentāculī); second declension

1. prop, stay, support
2. sustenance, nourishment

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• Catalan: sustentacle
• Galician: sustentáculo
• Italian: sostentacolo
• Portuguese: sustentáculo
• Spanish: sustentáculo

• “sustentaculum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “sustentaculum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sustentaculum 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)
• sustentaculum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.