ramale

Latin

Etymology

Substantivized neuter of rāmālis, from rāmus (“branch”) +‎ -ālis (“-al”).

Noun

rāmāle n (genitive rāmālis); third declension

1. (in the plural) twigs, shoots, sticks
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.644–645:

     Multifidāsque facēs rāmāliaque ārida tēctō
     dētulit et minuit parvōque admōvit aēnō.

     Cleft torches and dry sticks from the abode
     she took and chopped and brought to a small bronze vessel.

2. brushwood, undergrowth

Usage notes

This noun is almost exclusively pluralia tantum. The singular is however encountered, very rarely:

c. 62 CE, Persius, Saturae 1.97–98:

'"Arma virum!" Nōnne hoc spūmōsum et cortice pinguī,
ut rāmāle vetus vēgrandī sūbere coctum?

'"Arms and the man!" Is this not bombastic, with a thick shell,
like an old twig cooked with a great cork-tree?

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, “pure” i-stem).

	singular	plural
nominative	rāmāle	rāmālia
genitive	rāmālis	rāmālium
dative	rāmālī	rāmālibus
accusative	rāmāle	rāmālia
ablative	rāmālī	rāmālibus
vocative	rāmāle	rāmālia

References

• “ramale”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ramale in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.