caecum

• cæcum (obsolete)
• cecum (US)

Borrowed from Latin caecum (“invisible, hidden”), clipping of intestīnum caecum (“blind gut”), translation of Ancient Greek τῠφλὸν ἔντερον (tuphlòn énteron).

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiː.kəm/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːkəm

caecum (plural caecums or caeca)

1. (anatomy) A cavity open at one end (such as the blind end of a duct), especially a blind pouch connected to the large intestine between the ileum and the colon.

   Synonym: blind gut

   • 1970, J. G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition:

     After a preliminary course in anatomy it was found that caecum and transverse colon also provided excellent sites for excitation.

• “caecum”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “cecum”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

• ceacum

caecum f (plural caecums)

1. Alternative spelling of cæcum

• “caecum”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkae̯.kum/, [ˈkäe̯kʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃe.kum/, [ˈt͡ʃɛːkum]

From caecus (“having no light; uncertain, doubtful”).

caecum n (genitive caecī); second declension

1. (poetic) Uncertainty, obscurity.

Second-declension noun (neuter).

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

caecum

1. inflection of caecus:
   1. accusative masculine singular
   2. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular

• “caecus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press