quadrivium

From Medieval Latin quadrivium (“the four mathematical studies”), from Latin quattuor (“four”) + via (“road”).

quadrivium (plural quadriviums or quadrivia)

1. (education, historical) The higher division of the seven liberal arts in the Middle Ages, composed of geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music.

• trivium

From quattuor (“four”) +‎ via (“road, path”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kʷaˈdri.u̯i.um/, [kʷäˈd̪riu̯iʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /kwaˈdri.vi.um/, [kwäˈd̪riːvium]

quadrivium n (genitive quadriviī or quadrivī); second declension

1. a crossroads; place where four ways meet.
2. (Medieval Latin) the quadrivium (the four mathematical liberal arts)

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

• Vulgar Latin: *quadruvium
  • Italian: carrobbio, carruggio (from Gallo-Italic)
  • Old French: carroge, carouge
    • French: Carouge, Carrouge (Swiss toponyms)
• → English: quadrivium
• → Italian: quadrivio
• → Polish: quadrivium, kwadrywium

• “quadrivium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “quadrivium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• quadrivium 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)
• quadrivium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “quadrivium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (carroge)
• “carrefour”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from Latin quadrivium or French quadrivium.

quadrivium n (uncountable)

1. quadrivium