cuniculus

Borrowed from Latin cunīculus.

cuniculus (plural cuniculi)

1. A burrow or low underground passage, such as a rabbit warren, mine, or catacomb.

   Synonym: latibulum (obsolete)

2. A burrow in the skin made by a mite.

• cuniculum, cuniclus, cunicolus, coniculus, conicolus

Perhaps some Iberian or Celtiberian word + the Latin diminutive -ulus or -culus. Compare Basque untxi (“rabbit”). Attested from Varro onward.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kʊˈniː.kʊ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [kuˈniː.ku.lus]

cunīculus m (genitive cunīculī); second declension

1. a rabbit
   • 38 CE – 104 CE, Martialis, Xenia 60:

     gaudet in effossīs habitāre cunīculus antrīs.
     mōnstrāvit tacitās hostibus ille viās.

     The rabbit enjoys living in dug out hollows. It showed the hidden paths to the foes.

2. a rabbit burrow
3. a mine, underground tunnel or gallery
   • 2015, Tuomo Pekkanen, Nuntii Latini 7.8.2015:https://areena.yle.fi/1-2864830

     Greges migratorum, qui diversis viis ex Africa vel Asia in Europam venerunt, in proximitatem urbis Caleti (Calais) convenerunt, unde brevissima est in Britanniam per cuniculum traiectio.

     Groups of migrants, coming into Europe by various routes from Africa and Asia, came together near the city of Calais, where it is but a short passage to Britain through the tunnel.

   • Phaedrus, Fabulae 4.21:

     vulpēs, cubīle fodiēns, dum terram ēruit
     agitque plūrīs altius cunīculōs,
     pervēnit ad dracōnis spēluncam ultimam

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Second-declension noun.

• cunīculārium

Borrowings

• “cunīculus” in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present

• “cuniculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cuniculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "cuniculus", 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)
• “cuniculus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to make mines, subterraneous passages: cuniculos agere (B. G. 3. 21)
    
• “cuniculus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “cuniculus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin