ictus

Unadapted borrowing from Latin ictus (“a blow”), from īco (“to hit, strike”).

singular

• (UK) enPR: ĭkʹtəs, IPA^(key): /ˈɪktəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Homophones: ichthus, ichthys

plural

• (UK) enPR: ĭkʹto͞os, IPA^(key): /ˈɪktuːs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

ictus (plural ictus or ictuses or ictusses)

1. The pulse.
2. (medicine) A sudden attack, blow, stroke, or seizure, as in a sunstroke, the sting of an insect, pulsation of an artery, etc.
3. (prosody) The stress of voice laid upon an accented syllable of a word. Compare arsis.
4. (music) In conducting, the indication of a musical event, most often the beat of the tempo or the entry of a section of the orchestra.

• Rarely, the Latinate plural ictūs is found.

• cutis, ustic

Learned borrowing from Latin ictus.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈik.tus]

• Audio (Barcelona):

  (file)

ictus m (plural ictusos)

1. (medicine, music) ictus

• “ictus”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

Unadapted borrowing from Latin ictus (“a blow”), from the expression ictus apoplecticus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈik.tus/
• Rhymes: -iktus
• Hyphenation: ìc‧tus

ictus m (invariable)

1. (pathology) ictus, stroke

   Synonyms: infarto cerebrale, (familiar) colpo

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈɪk.tʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈik.tus]

From ī̆cō (“to strike”) + -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs).

ictus m (genitive ictūs); fourth declension

1. a blow, stroke, stab, thrust, bite, sting

   Synonyms: vulnus, colaphus, pulsus, plāga

   • c. 52 BCE, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico VII.25:

     Ictu scorpionis

     By a blow of a scorpion

   1. a striking, playing on the lyre
   2. the stroke of a wing
   3. a stroke of lightning, lightning

      Synonyms: fulmen, fulgur

2. (prosody, music) a beating time, a beat
3. a beat of the pulse
4. an attack, shot

   Synonyms: impetus, incursio, aggressio, impressiō, invasio, appetītus, assultus, occursio, oppugnātiō, incursus, concursus, vīs, petītiō, procella

Fourth-declension noun.

• Galician: eito, → ictus
• Portuguese: eito, → icto
• → English: ictus, ictal
• → Italian: itto, ictus
• →? Old Irish: icht (“deed”)
  • Middle Irish: icht

Perfect passive participle of ī̆cō.

ictus (feminine icta, neuter ictum); first/second-declension participle

1. hit, struck, blown
2. stabbed, stung

First/second-declension adjective.

• “ictus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ictus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "ictus", 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)
• “ictus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • struck by lightning: fulmine ictus
    

• cutis

Borrowed from Latin ictus or French ictus.

ictus n (plural ictusuri)

1. (medicine) ictus
2. (prosody) ictus
3. (music) ictus

• IPA^(key): /ˈiɡtus/ [ˈiɣ̞.t̪us]
• Rhymes: -iɡtus
• Syllabification: ic‧tus

ictus m (plural ictus)

1. (medicine) stroke, ictus

   Synonym: derrame

• “ictus”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025