# quadrantum vs quadrantium



## James Bates

According to both the English and French versions of Wiktionary, the genitive plural of "quadrans" ("a quarter") is "quadrantum". Yet my knowledge of Latin tells me that when a third declension masculine or feminine noun ends in –s or –x and has a base ending in two consonants, the genitive plural ending is –ium. Could somebody help me out here?


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## fdb

Wiktionary is (for once) right. See here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=quadrans


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## James Bates

Well, I'll be!


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## James Bates

It seems the Latin version of Wiktionary is wrong: https://la.wiktionary.org/wiki/quadrans


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## Scholiast

Salvete!

Well you'll be what (#3)? Gildersleeve & Lodge (§§ 38, 54 (especially), & 57 n.3) have numerous examples of variant _-ium_ and -_um_ endings for 3rd-declension formations, not all of them consistent in classical usage, let alone in the imaginary gospels of schoolmasters' rule-books.

And I'm sure - though I cannot momentarily pinpoint examples - I have seen syncopated _-um _for _-ium_ lots of times in Virgil &c., _metri gratia_.

Furthermore, _quadrans_, or rather _quadrantum_, is in any case a _hapax_, not only in Frontinus, but it seems, in the entirety of classical Latin.

Σ


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## wtrmute

James is simply shocked that Wktionary didn't get this one wrong, not that the third-declension nouns have exceptions to the Genitive Plural endings.

In fact, in a way it's unfortunate that dictionaries fell into the habit (classical, I'm sure) of listing the genitive singular along with the nominative as a principal part.  If they had used the genitive plural instead, we wouldn't have to memorise rules for when a third-declension is an i-stem or when it's a consonant-stem (I guess mixed-stems will always be kind of irregular).


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