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The Alphabetary Heraldic

Genealogical Glossary

—Cr-Cz—

cra- : [Gk] to mis.

-cracy : [Gk] rule by.

cranage : the charge for using a crane when loading or unloading a vessel.

crane

-crat : [Gk] one who advocates or practices rule by.

cre- : cresc- : cret- : to grow.

creation : [3972 bc] the year of creation as reckoned by Buckminster in his Almanac for the Year 1598, which year he identified as the year of creation 5560.

creation for life : a title created for the lifetime of the honoree, such as a life peerage, as opposed to a hereditary peerage.

creation of the universe : the Big Bang.

creative : [1678] pertaining to a title invented or created, such as a noble title.  Cf. genealogical adjectives.

creatus : [with ablative of father or mother] son, daughter.  Cf. peerage.

creavit : he was created, elected to office.

cred- : credit- : to believe, trust.

credit- : cred- : to believe, trust.

creditor: he to whom a debt is owed.

creditrix : she to whom money is owed.

creed : [Sx] a form of words in which one restates the articles of his faith.

Creek : a tribe with female chiefs.

creeping paralysis : tabes dorsalis; syphilis.[161]

cremains : bodily remains of a cremated corpse.

cremation : crematio : a burning.  Cremation is practiced widely throughout the world, but Christians suspended the practice due to their doctrine of resurrection.  Cf. catacombs, ossuary.

crenate : crena : [1755] to notch, indent.

crenated : crenatus : [1755] notched or indented.

crenellate : [1851] to add battlements for the purpose of fortifying a house.  Cf. licence to crenellate.

crenellation : crennoc’ : [1851] embattlements, embrasures.  The modern form of this word arose in Victorian times, but the spelling crennoc’ represents some documentary suspension based on the Latin crena or crenatus.[162]

crennoc’ : crenellation.

cresc- : cre- : cret- : to grow.

crest : [Sx] juba; a plume of feathers customarily worn on the top of an ancient helmet; the helmet; the heraldically distinct ornamentation atop a helmet, often consisting of one or more heraldic beasts or body parts, or some unique object or shape.  Heralds usually aimed to devise a crest that would match or complement some ensign or feature shown on the escutcheon, but many crests are unrelated to the shield design.  As the crest was intended to surmount a helmet, the herald was obliged to consider some practical limitations in the sculpture or fabrication of such three-dimensional objects.  For example, if an armigerous man happened to have lions passant as armorial charges, his matching crest might be a single lion statant, because an artisan would need to have some firm foundation for attaching the lion to a helmet.  A lion passant is leaping forward in attack, with its front paws positioned mid air, so its stance is ill suited to dimensional representations of a crest.

crest : crista : comb, tuft.

cret- : cern- : to separate, distinguish.

cret- : cre- : cresc- : to grow.

cri- : [Gk] to judge, decide, separate.

crib : [Sx] the rack or manger of a stable; the stall or cabin of an ox; a fenced bed for an infant.  Cf. family bed.

crim. : criminal.

crime : crimen : an act contrary to right; an offence; a great fault; an act of wickedness.  Cf. five dragons of crime.

crimes : patristic crimes typically committed by males.  Cf. child molestation, five dragons of crime, pedophilia, serial killings.

criminal : a man accused, a man guilty of a crime.

crispitudo : to wave, brandish the penis.

crispo : to wave, brandish the penis.

crista : crest.

critic : [Gk] a man skilled at judging literature; someone able to discern the faults and beauties of writing; examiner, judge, snarler, carper, censurer; a man apt to find fault.[163]

crocket : a small crook or bend appearing as an architectural feature.

croft : a small plot farmed or worked by a peasant.

crofter : one who rents and tills a croft; one who works or farms a croft.

croisade : [Fr] crusade.

Cro-magnon man : Homo sapiens sapiens, the late prehistoric form of Homo sapiens; the people who flourished in the Late Quaternary period.  Cf. Hominidae.

crone : an old ewe, a female sheep well beyond its third shearing.  Cf. ewe, sheep.

crosier: [Fr] the pastoral staff of a bishop surmounted by a cross.

cross : croes : [We] the ensign of Christianity; a monument surmounted by a cross, as was customarily erected at ancient marketplaces.  The Greek cross is a simple sign with arms of equal length, whereas the Roman cross has a longer arm at its base.

cross aunt : FaSi; amita; father’s sister.  Cf. parallel aunt.

cross cousin : X : FaSiCh, MoBrCh; multilineal cousin, a cousin related through mixed sexes; the children of siblings of opposite sex; a cousin through a father and his sister; a cousin through a mother and her brother.  Cross cousins belong to parents of opposite sexes, and therefore are less likely to associate and travel together than parallel cousins.  In a kinship diagram, the cross cousins are placed on the outsides, farthest away from the ego.  Opp. parallel cousin (//), double cousin.

cross cousin marriage : intermarriage that arises when two or more generations of two families practice sister exchange.[164]  Cross cousin marriage has two categories, namely the symmetric form of bilateral cross cousin marriage, and the asymmetric form of unilateral cross cousin marriage.[165]  Lineages are normally exogamous, and therefore kinship systems often identify parallel cousins as sisters, and often prohibit unilineal marriages.  Thus, we find that the most common form of cousin marriage occurs only between cross cousins, and never between parallel cousins.  The most curious aspect of cross cousin marriage lies in the fact that a spouse acquires his own cross uncle and aunt as his affines, thereby eliminating the artificial relations of in-laws.[166]  Cross cousin marriage therefore unites two lineages with many consistent ties, and yet reduces the number of cleavages by half.[167]  Cf. asymmetric unilateral cross cousin marriage, symmetric bilateral cross cousin marriage.

cross kin : Ch=Sb(ss)Ch≠Sb(os)Ch; categories in generational level -1 that are reciprocals of cross-kin categories in level +1.[168]

cross kin : Da=BrDa≠SiDa; female alters of a female ego in generational level -1.

cross kin : Da=SiDa≠BrDa : female alters of a female ego in generational level -1.

cross kin : MoBr, FaSi; cross kin in generational level +1.  The ego’s mother’s brother (MoBr) and father’s sister (FaSi) are his cross kin (Fa=FaBr≠MoBr, Mo=MoSi≠FaSi).

cross kin : Sb(os)Ch, FaSiCh, MoBrCh; cross kin in generational level 0.  kin traced to the ego through opposite-sex (os) links, such as father’s sister (FaSi) and mother’s brother (MoBr).  In an anthropological diagram, it is customary to place cross cousins in outer groups, farthest from the ego.

cross kin : So=BrSo≠SiSo; male alters of a male ego in generational level –1.  Sb=PaSb(ss)Ch≠PaSb(os)Ch.

cross kin : So=SiSo≠BrSo : male alters of a female ego in generation level -1.

cross reference : hyperlink; vide, see; quod vide, which see; vide infra, see below; vide supra, see above.  Cf. headword, hyperlink, index entry, parallel reference, vide.

cross uncle : MoBr; avunculus; mother’s brother.  Cf. parallel uncle.

cross uncle and aunt : FaSi, MoBr; one’s uncle and aunt related through mixed sexes.  Cf. parallel uncle and aunt.

crossbones : crossed legs are the mark of a buried crusader.  Amazons too were buried this way, as horsewomen.  The skull and crossbones is a Masonic symbol for death.

crossbow : a bow mounted upon a stock and used to shoot small missiles.

cross-œuillet : cross-shaped loopholes built into a battlement and used for firing weapons.  The older designs were straight and angular, but later designs provided enlarged and rounded openings at the end of each arm to act as stands to stablize firearms.

Crow : Absaroka, Absaroke.  Cf. American shaman transvestites.

crow : eat crow.

Crow system : a bifurcate merging matriliny that applies only one kin term for Fa, FaBr, FaSiSo, and FaSiDaSo, one term for FaSi, FaSiDa, and FaSiDaDa, one term for So, BrSo, and MoBrSo, and one term for Si, FaBrDa, and MoSiDa.  The ego has ties to his matrilineal or uterine relatives that are distinctly different from his ties with patrilineal or agnatic relatives.  The Crow system is the famous model of matriliny, wherein a mother’s brother or the maternal uncle becomes the focal point for all types of inheritance, succession, social rank, chieftainship, and magic.[169]  The kin terms for the ego’s patrilineal cross cousins are raised or ‘elevated’ a generation, whereas his matrilineal cross cousins are ‘lowered’ a generation.  Cf. bifurcate merging terminology, Navajo system.  Opp. Omaha system.

crown : [1603] a gold coin worth 5 shillings.

crown : [1806] 5 shillings, equivalent to 111.16 cents in 1806 dollars.

crown : corona : an ornament for the head which denotes imperial or regal dignity; regal power, royalty.  Cf. coronet.

crspd. : correspond; correspondence.

cruc- : cross.

crucifixerunt : they crucified him, attached him to a cross.  Cf. Hugonem.

crucifixion : Cf. Pentitentes.

crudelitas : cruelty, a ground for divorce.

cruel : [Fr] inhuman, devoid of pity; bloody, mischievous, destructive.

cruise: cruse : [1519/9/25-10/1 Du] kruiche, a small cup.[170]

cruising: ludus.

crusade : croisade : [Fr] a war carried on against infidels under the banner of the cross.[171]

cruses : [1519/9/25-10/1] cruises.

crusted tetter : impetigo, a ringworm.

cryph- : crypt- : [Gk] hidden, secret.

crypt- : cryph- : [Gk] hidden, secret.

cryptography : [Gk] ciphers, secret characters; the art of writing secret characters.

crystal : 15th year of marriage; symbol of the fifteenth wedding anniversary.

csn. : cousin.

Ct : contubernine.  Opp. spouse (Sp).

ct. : court, county.

Cte : Comte : [Fr] Count.

Ctse : Comtesse : [Fr] Countess.

Cu Chulain : [Celtic] a martial artist male.

cuadro genalógico : [Sp] ancestor table; pedigree chart.  Cf. Ahnentafel.

cub- : cumb- : to lie down.

cubicularius : camerarius, chamberlain, a household officer.[172]

cubito : to live down often, be accustomed to lie.

cubitura :

cubo : to lie down, recline.

cuckold: cocu [Fr] a name derived from cuckoo; someone married to an adultress; someone whose wife is false to his bed.  Cf. cuckoo, horns.

cuckoldom : the state of a cuckold, acts of adultery.

cuckoldy : poor, mean, cowardly; having the qualities of a cuckold.

cuckoo : a migratory bird with disorderly habits, which appears in northern Europe near the end of April, but disappears in July.  Named for its distinctive cry, the cuckoo is intially welcomed as a sure sign of spring, but listeners soon tire of its monotonous song.  Quite oddly, the cuckoo makes no nest of its own, and instead lays its eggs in the nest of a smaller bird that acts as a foster parent.  A newborn cuckoo is larger than its foster siblings, and will typically nudge the natal offspring out of their own nest.  However, its foster mother will usually continue to naïvely foster the cuckoo, as if it were its own.  This act of deception and usurpation is what prompted the Renaissance poets to invent the concept of a cuckold.  The analogy is indirect, because it is the adulterer who assumes the rôle a cuckoo, whereas the unsuspecting husband is identified as the passive victim of deception, or the one who has been ‘cuckooed,’ or made into a cuckold.  A husband gullible enough to live with an adulterous wife is presumed to be a pitiable dolt, someone just as stupid and compliant as the little bird that unwittingly fosters an alien cuckoo.  Cf. cuckold, horns.

cucullus : foreskin, hood for the head.

cucumis : cucumber; penis.

cucutium : foreskin.  Cf. præputium.

cugina : [It] PaSbDa; cousin.

cugino : [It] PaSbSo; cousin.

cugino germano : [It] first cousin, cousin-german.

cuidad : [Sp] city.

cuidam armigero claudo : one shut in by armed guard.[173]

cuirass : cuirasse : [Fr] a breastplate.  This abbreviated body armor was originally made of leather, but it evolved into a piece of shiney metal.

cuirassier : a man at arms, a soldier dressed in armor.

cuir-bouilli : leather boiled in oil for the purpose of moulding it into shapes.

cuirie : cuirass.

cuis susceptores : godparents, those who lift up a child at baptism; baptismal sponsors.  Cf. compadrazgo.

-cule : -cle : little.

Cullen plate : Cologne plate, latten.

culp- : blame, fault.

cult : cultus : worship, devotion to special dieties; the ritual adoration of the master, mistress, and household gods among the servants and slaves of a Roman household.

culture : civilization, high society; the arts and letters of an evolved people.  Opp. nature.  Cf. metaculture, supraculture, transculture.

culture : learned behaviors, such as fatherhood and gender behaviors.[174]

cultus deorum : divine cult.

culus : anus, rectum, buttocks.

cum : [Am colloquialism] to come; to ejaculate semen during sexual intercourse; to experience sexual orgasm.  The spelling cum is an obsolete form of the past particple come, but English speakers have adopted it anew as the slang equivalent of come, especially when used as a reference to ejaculation or orgasm.  Standard dictionaries generally ignore the sexual nuances of this verb, so it is especially difficult to trace its history.  Nevertheless, the verb spelled come or cum is widely used in common parlance, vulgar literature, and sex education.  Cf. precum.

cum : [Lt] with.

cum : with, along with; in, by, under.

-cum- : with; a conjunctive preposition that sometimes appears in English place names, such as Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

cum coniunx : with spouse.

cum equum conscenderet profecturus ad Parliamentum : mounted on horseback he de­parted for parliament.[175]

cum grano salis : with a grain of salt; with some caution or reserve.

cum longo ante tempore fuisset omnino sterilis : but she had been completely sterile for a long time before that.[176]

cum pertinenciis : with appertinences.[177]

cum privilegio Regiæ Maiestatis : by license of Her Majesty the Queen.

cum sua uxore Algiva : with his wife Algiva.[178]

cum tota sequela sua : and all their issue.[179]

cumb- : cub- : to lie down.

Cumb. : Cumberland.

Cumberlandia : Cumbria : Cumberland.

cumming: the participle of cum.

cuneiform : [2500 bc] Babylonian cuneiform, which appears as the third language of the trilingual inscriptions left by the Achaemenian Dynasty.  Babylonian cuneiform was in use for 2,000 years before the Behistun Inscription.  The Behistun script was deciphered by a collaboration of the Frenchman Jules Oppert, the Irishman Edward Hinkcs, the French archaeologist Louis Frédérick Joseph Caignart de Saulcy, and the British Assyriologist Henry Creswicke Rawlinson.  Many samples of Babylonian cuneiform have been found in Babylon and Nineveh, and at many sites on the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris.  The script was used on statues, seals, walls, obelisks, and cylinders.  Scribes used clay tablets, and some of the tablets are as large as 15.2 x 22.8 centimeters, or 9 x 6 inches.  Many tablets are surprisingly small, as small as 2.54 centimeters square, or slightly larger than 1 inch square.  A few tablets have six lines per 2.54 cm, and therefore must be read by magnifying glass.

cuneiform : [3000-1000 bc] Sumerian cuneiform, which first represented the spoken language, 3000-2000 bc, and then became a literary language that finally died out about 1000 bc.

cuneiform : [550-330 bc] Old Persian alphabet, which appeared at the first language of the trilingual inscriptions left by the Achaemenian kings.  Only two kinds of cuneiform evolved into alphabetic systems, namely Old Persian and Ugaritic.  Old Persian used 36 characters that were mainly alphabetic, but which were sometimes used to represent syllables.  The oldest inscription was ordered by Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae.  The most recent inscription was that of Artaxerxes III (regnavit circa 358-338 bc) at Persepolis.  Most of the 36 signs were gradually identified by the Germans Oluf Gerhard Tychsen and Georg Friedrich Grotefend, the Dane Rasmus Christian Rask, and the Frenchman Eugene Burnouf.  The English Assyriologist Henry Creswicke Rawlinson translated the Persian cuneiform of the Behistun Inscription, and published it in 1846.

cuneiform : cuneus : [3000 bc] writing with the wedge-shaped strokes of a stylus on clay or wax, and sometimes on stone or metal.  The cuneus ‘wedge’ style of writing originated in Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, and evolved in application to write the Sumerian language, the Akkadian language, and the two Akkadian dialects Babylonian and Assyrian.  The American George Aaron Bartonin published a collection of 288 pictographs in 1913, to prove that cuneiform was originally a pictographic system with depicted parts of the human body, animals, birds, fishes, insects, trees, clouds and stars, utensils, furniture, buildings, boats, ritual implements, nets, traps, pottery, musical instruments, weapons, and clothing, as well as earth, water, and fire.  German excavations at Uruk, now Warka, Iraq, from 1928 to 1931, yielded some of the oldest known examples of pictographic writing in cuneiform on clay tablets.

cuneiform : Elamite cuneiform, which appeared as the second language of the trilingual inscriptions left by the Achaemenian kings.  Elamite has 96 syllabic signs, 16 logograms, and 5 determinants.  The Danish scholar Neils Ludvig Westergaard deciphered the Elamite cuneiform on the Behistun Inscription in 1844, but no other comparative works exist to assist us in further understanding the script.  Cf. Behistun Inscriptions.

cunggr : conger.

cunnilingus : stimulation of the mons veneris, labia, and clitoris with one’s tongue and lips.  Cf. annulingus.

cunnum lingere : [metaphor] to eat the genitalia.  Cf. fellare.

cunnum lingere : to lick the cunnum.  Cf. lingere mentulam.

cunnus : the female pudenda.

Cupid and Psyche : Hu & Cc; two characters in the Golden Ass of Apuleius.  Psyche was the youngest daughter of a king having three daughters, and she was so renowned for her beauty that Venus herself grew jealous of her.  Venus dispatched her son Cupid to wreck havoc upon Psyche, but Cupid himself became enamored of Psyche, and secreted her in a valley.  As a god, Cupid visited Psyche in the valley, but he remained invisible, and commanded Psyche to never try to see him.  Tempted by her own curiosity, and the urgings of her sisters, Psyche violated Cupid’s command, and tried to spy upon him.  Cupid thus abandoned her, but she wandered the earth in search of him.  Psyche was so persistent in her pining after Cupid, that Jupiter determined to grant her immortality, so that she could reunite with Cupid forever.

Cupid blindfolded : [1603] a typical sign for a brothel.

cupiditas et avaritia : cupidity and avarice; desire for money.

cupiditas insana : insane cupidity; eager desire, passionate longing.

cupid­itas popularis : popular cupidity; factiousness for a demagogue; party spirit; political ambition.

cupidity : cupiditas : concupiscence; unlawful desire, unreasonable longing.

cur- : cours- : curr- : curs- : to run, go.

cura : [Sp] parish priest.

cura : a guardianship that commenced at pu­berty, or 14 years for boys, and 12 years for girls, when the guardianship called tutela expired.  The cura continued until the end of the 25th year.  Cf. tutela.

cura : edited by.

curacy : a perpetual curacy held by license from the bishop; the employment of a clergyman under a benefice.

curate : curator : deputy of a rector or vicar, a clergyman hired to perform the duties of another; a parish priest; someone who holds perpetual curacy.

curateship : curacy.

curato : [Sp] parish.

curator : one who is charged with the care and superintendence of something; an appointed guardian.

curia ducis : ducal court.

curia regis : king’s court, consisting of household officers, officials of state, lawyers, prelates and nobles, which partly survives today as (1) the House of Lords, though considerably changed, and (2) the Exchequer.  The House of Lords arose from the ‘peerage,’ a court of barons as suitors of the curia regis.[180]

curlew : a large brownish wading bird from the same family as the woodcock and sandpiper, valued at 6d in 1519.[181]

Curlews : [1519/9/25-10/1] curlews.

Curnualia : Cornwall.

curr- : cours- : cur- : curs- : to run, go.

currant : a seedless raisin.  Cf. raisin of Corinth.

curs- : cours- : cur- : curr- : to run, go.

curs- : cur-.

curs- : curr-.

curse : malediction, affliction, torment, vexation.

curtains : the fortified curtain walls that extend between the towers of a fortress to make an enclosure.

curtilage : courtillage : [Fr] a garden, yard, or field, lying close to a messuage.

curtsy : curtsey : [1553] to make a leg; to show courtesy to a superior; to bend both knees as low as possible, placing the left leg forward and the right leg behind it for stability.  This gesture of humility was normally complemented with a forward bow of the head and shoulders.  Both men and women customarily ‘made a leg’ in the presence of a superior in Elizabethan and Jacobean times.  The Puritan interregnum (1649-1660) presumably discouraged such courtly formalities, so the custom began to change.  The curtsy became an exclusively female practice, whereas men were permitted to simply bow their head and shoulders without bending their knees.  Cf. neck bow.

custody : custodia : imprisonment, restraint of liberty; care, guardianship, charge.

custom : coustume : [Fr] habit, habuitual practice; fashion; a common way of acting; an unwritten law or right established by long use; tribute, a tax paid for goods imported or exported.

customer : someone who frequents a merchant for purchasing items; a toll gatherer, a collector of customs; an official who levied duties on imports and exports.

custos : mounted servant who acts as a chaperone to ladies and boys.[182]

cutpurse: someone who steals by cutting off a purse hanging pendant from the girdle.

cutthroat : a murderer, ruffian.

CW : Civil War.

cwm : [We] dingle, dell; a small wooded valley.[183]

cyan- : [Gk] dark blue.

Cybele : Kubala, literally she of the ax.  Cybele was the Phrygian Mother Goddess, or Great Mother, called the Mother of Gods, Men, Mountains, and Lions.  She has been paired with the castrate youth Attis, and therefore, has been regarded as a lesbian or amazon archtype.  She was widely worshipped throughout Asia Minor, Europe, and north Africa, and her cult often used unusual stones, such as meteoric remnants, to represent Cybele.  Because the goddess was adulated as a magical stone, often inside natural caves, she is believed to have been a prehistoric goddess who predated human statues. Cybele was later depicted as the driver of a chariot drawn by bull-killing lions, in the second century.[184]  When bulls were sacrificed to Cybele, they represented the slaughter of men.  The Termodontines worshipped her as Tauropolos, and the Cretans worshipped her as Rhea.  At Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater, and later transformed into the Black Mary.[185]  Cf. Black Mary, dildos, Magna Mater, Rhea, Tauropolos.

cycl- : [Gk] circle, wheel.

cyclas : a type of military surcourt.

cycle : cyclus : a circle, a period of time, a circle in the heavens.

cycles : Metonic Cycle (19 years, 235 lunations), Callippic Cycle (76 years), Solar Cycle (28 years), Indiction Cycle (15 years), Saros Cycle (18+ years, 223 lunations.  Cf. Golden Number, Three Cycles of the Ancients.

cycles : Three Cycles of the Ancients, namely the Indiction Cycle (15 years), Metonic Cycle (19 years), and Solar Cycle (28 years)

cyfnither : [We] female cousin.

cyn- : cynos- : [Gk] dog.

cyndad : [We] ancestor.

cynos- : cyn- : [Gk] dog.

Cyparissus : Cyparisus : the beautiful youth who was loved by Silvanus.  Cf. Mithra and the Bull, Silvanus and Cyparissus.

cypher alphabets : the 150 cypher alphabets the Book of Ballymote required a novice to learn, before advancing to ollaveship.[186]  Cf. B.L.N. alphabet.

Cyprian : relating to Aphroditē.[187]

Cyprian petals : lips;[188] the labia.

Cyrenaica : Pentapolis, modern Barca.  The place was defined by the ancients as located in northern Africa, bounded by the Mediterranean in the north, and Marmarica in the east, and the desert in the south.  This fertile land was settled by the Therians around 631 bc, subject to Egypt from 321 bc, and joined with Crete to become a Roman province in 67 bc.  The Persians and Saracens ruined the region in the seventh century.

cyst- : [Gk] bladder, sac; sac containing morbid matter.

cyt- : [Gk] cell.

cytosine : [1894] a pyrimidine base that codes genetic information in the polynucleotide chain of DNA or RNA.

czar : tsar : the title of an emperor of Russia; a title derived from Zarina of Scythia.

czarina : the title of an empress of Russia.