decuman

D2E1C3U1M3A1N1
/ˈdɛkjʊmən/

adjective

Large; chief; applied to an extraordinary billow, supposed by some to be every tenth in sequence.

OriginLatin decumānus →
Scrabble 12
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Meanings

adjectivedecuman (not comparable)
  1. not comparableobsoleteLarge; chief; applied to an extraordinary billow, supposed by some to be every tenth in sequence.

    decuman billows

    c. 1870, Frederic Farrar, The witness of history to Christ; 5 sermons, being the Hulsean lects. for 1870
  2. historicalnot comparableConnected with the principal gate of an Ancient Roman camp, near which the tenth cohort of the legion was stationed.
noundecuman (plural decumans)

plural decumans

  1. obsoleteAn extraordinarily large billow.

    Looking up suddenly, I found mine eyes / Confronted with the minster's vast repose. / Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff / Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat, / […] / Remembering shocks of surf that clomb and fell, / Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman, […]

    1869 December (indicated as 1870 January), James Russell Lowell, “The Cathedral”, in James Thomas Fields, editor, The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXV, number CXLVII, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5

Origin

  1. Latindecumānus“of the tenth, and by metonymy, large”
  2. Englishdecuman

From Latin decumānus (“of the tenth, and by metonymy, large”), from decem (“ten”).

More words from Latin

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

mancude
Cite this entry
APA

decuman. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/decuman

MLA

“decuman.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/decuman. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “decuman,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/decuman.

Source: decuman on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.