decuman, a.
(ˈdɛkjuːmən)
Also 7–8 -ane.
[ad. L. decumān-us, var. of decimānus of or belonging to the tenth part, or the tenth cohort, f. decim-us tenth: see -an; also, by metonymy, considerable, large, immense.]
1. Very large, immense: usually of waves.
(As to the vulgar notion that the tenth or decuman wave, fluctus decumanus, is greater and more dangerous than any other: see Sir Thos. Browne Pseud. Ep. vii. xvii. 2, De Quincey Pagan Oracles Wks. 1862 VII. 183.)
| 1659 Gauden Tears of Church 30 To be overwhelmed and quite sunk by such decumane billowes as those small vessels have no proportion to resist. 1708 Motteux Rabelais iv. xxiii. (1737) 97 That decumane Wave that took us fore and aft. 1838 Fraser's Mag. XVII. 122 The tenth, or decuman, is the last of the series of waves, and the most sweeping in its operation. 1870 Farrar Witn. Hist. i. (1871) 5 Confidence, that even amid the decuman billows of modern scepticism it [the Church] shall remain immovable. |
| absol. 1870 Lowell Poems, Cathedr., Shocks of surf that clomb and fell, Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman. |
2. Rom. Antiq. Belonging to the tenth cohort: applied to the chief entrance to a camp, or that farthest from the enemy (
porta decumana).
| 1852 Wright Celt, Roman, & Saxon (1861) 148 The decuman gate. |