caduceus

Via Latin cādūceus, cādūceum, adaptation of Doric Ancient Greek καρύκειον (karúkeion, “herald’s wand or staff”). This and Attic Greek κηρύκειον (kērúkeion) are derived from κῆρυξ (kêrux, “herald, public messenger”). Related to κηρύσσω (kērússō, “I announce”).

• (US) IPA^(key): /kəˈdu.si.əs/, /kəˈdjuː.si.əs/

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caduceus (plural caducei)

1. The official wand carried by a herald in ancient Greece and Rome, specifically the one carried in mythology by Hermes, the messenger of the gods, usually represented with two snakes twined around it.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book II, canto XII:

     Caduceus the rod of Mercury, / With which he wonts the Stygian realmes inuade […]

2. A symbol (☤) representing a staff with two snakes wrapped around it, used to indicate merchants and messengers. It is also sometimes incorrectly used as a symbol of medicine.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:caduceus.

• aesculapian staff
• Rod of Asclepius

• Wikipedia article on the Rod of Asclepius

• caucused

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kaːˈduː.ke.us/, [kaːˈduː.ke.ʊs]

cādūceus m (genitive cādūceī); second declension

1. Alternative form of cādūceum

Second declension.

• caduceus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• caduceus in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• caduceus in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin