cautes

• cōtes

Likely a hypercorrection of cōtēs, the plural of cōs (“whetstone, sharpening stone”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₃- (“to sharpen”), so originally meaning “sharp points, promontories”.^[1] See plaudō~plōdō for another possible example of the same hypercorrection. Cognates include Latin catus (“clever, cunning”), cōs (“whetstone”), cuneus (“wedge”) and Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “cone”).

A different suggestion relates it to English heap and Tocharian B kauc (“up, high”), from an irregular-shaped root, as well as with English high, a connection rejected by modern etymologists. The three different stop consonants t~p~k under this suggestion likewise remain unexplained.^[2]

cautēs f (genitive cautis); third declension

1. a rough, craggy or pointed rock, or cliff; rock, crag
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.366–367:

     “[...] sed dūrīs genuit tē cautibus horrēns / Caucasus, Hyrcānaeque admōrunt ūbera tigrēs.”

     “But the hard, horrible Caucasus bore you on [its] jagged cliffs, and Hyrcanian tigresses took you to their teats.”
     (Dido portrays Aeneas as being hard-hearted and inhuman. Syncopation: admorunt = admoverunt.)

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

• “cautēs”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cautes”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cautes in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.