cumulus

Learned borrowing from Latin cumulus. Doublet of comble.

Sense 2 (“type of cloud”) was coined by the British chemist and amateur meteorologist Luke Howard (1772–1864): see the 1803 quotation.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkjuːmjʊləs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkjumjələs/
• Rhymes: -uːmjʊləs
• Hyphenation: cu‧mu‧lus

cumulus (plural cumuli)

1. A heap or mound.
3. (meteorology) A large white, puffy cloud that develops through convection.
   • 1803 July, Luke Howard, “XVIII. On the Modifications of Clouds, and on the Principles of Their Production, Suspension, and Destruction; being the Substance of an Essay Read before the Askesian Society in the Session 1802–3.”, in Alexander Tilloch, editor, The Philosophical Magazine and Journal: Comprehending the Various Branches of Science, the Liberal and Fine Arts, Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, volume XVI, number 62, London: […] [Richard Taylor] for Alexander Tilloch; and sold by Messrs. Richardson, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 99 and 101:

     [page 99] Cumulus. […] Convex or conical heaps, increasing upward from a horizontal base. […] [page 101] The cumulus of fair weather has a moderate elevation and extent, and a well defined rounded surface. Previous to rain it increases more rapidly, appears lower in the atmosphere, and with its surface full of loose fleeces or protuberances.

   • 1878 November 8, C. Todd, “Observations at the Adelaide Observatory”, in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, volume 39, number 1, page 18:

     In the sketch (which is taken about 75 Jovian days after that of the 2nd July) there is shown a dark copper-coloured streak along the southern margin of the south brown belt, butting on to a bluff-headed streak of cumulus cloud which may be the same remarkable bluff head noticed on July 2.

   • 1919, Henry B[lake] Fuller, “Cope Enlivens the Country”, in Bertram Cope’s Year: A Novel, Chicago, Ill.: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, The Alderbrink Press, →OCLC, page 102:

     There were some new cumuli in the east, out above the water, and they began to take the late afternoon sun.

   • 2007 September 1, "Who’s afraid of Google?: The world’s internet superpower faces testing times", in The Economist, The Economist Newspaper Ltd, ISSN 0013-0613, volume 384, number 8544, page 9,

     Ironically, there is something rather cloudlike about the multiple complaints surrounding Google. The issues are best parted into two cumuli: a set of “public” arguments about how to regulate Google; and a set of “private” ones for Google’s managers, to do with the strategy the firm needs to get through the coming storm.

Borrowed from Latin cumulus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkumulus/, [ˈkumulus̠]
• Rhymes: -umulus
• Syllabification^(key): cu‧mu‧lus
• Hyphenation^(key): cu‧mu‧lus

cumulus

1. cumulus (cloud)

• cumuluspilvi
• kumpupilvi

• “cumulus”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

Borrowed from Latin cumulus. Doublet of comble.

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

cumulus m (invariable)

1. cumulus

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

Possibly formed as a diminutive of Proto-Indo-European *ḱuh₁-mós (“heap”), from *ḱewh₁- (“to swell”) +‎ *-mós. Cognates from this root include Ancient Greek κῦμᾰ (kûmă, “swell, wave”),^[1] Lithuanian saunas (“firm, fit, solid, capable”), and Sanskrit श्वयति (śvayati, “swell”). However, Schrijver thinks the evidence for deriving cumulus from *ḱewh₁- is weak.^[2] Proto-Indo-European *-uH- usually became Latin -ū- before a consonant, but De Vaan argues -u- might be the outcome of a regular sound change that shortened pretonic long vowels before resonants (discussed in Schrijver^[3]) or alternatively, analogy with tumulus.^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkʊ.mʊ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkuː.mu.lus]

cumulus m (genitive cumulī); second declension

1. heap, pile

   Synonyms: acervus, moles, massa

2. surplus
3. summit

Second-declension noun.

• cumulō

• “cumulus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cumulus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "cumulus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “cumulus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[2], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • his crowning happiness is produced by a thing; the culminating point of his felicity is..: ad felicitatem (magnus) cumulus accedit ex aliqua re
    
  • his crowning happiness is produced by a thing; the culminating point of his felicity is..: aliquid felicitatis cumulum affert
    
  • to add the crowning point to a person's joy: cumulum gaudii alicui afferre (vid. sect. V. 6) (Fam. 16. 21. 1)
    
• cumulus in Ramminger, Johann (16 July 2016 (last accessed)), Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎^[3], pre-publication website, 2005-2016

Borrowed from French cumulus, from Latin cumulus.

cumulus m (uncountable)

1. cumulus