Mancunium

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The Latin name for the Roman fort and settlement that once stood on the site of present-day Manchester in northwest England
2. An ancient Roman military post and town in what is now Manchester, England, known in Latin sources under this name
3. The Roman-era fortified settlement at the location of modern Manchester, recorded in Latin as a place name in Britain

Etymology: Mancunium is the Latin name for the Roman settlement that became Manchester, and it is a later form of the older name Mamucium. The Antonine Itinerary, a Roman list of road stations, records Mamucium, which the fort at Castlefield likely bore. Mancunium appears in a later list, the Ravenna Cosmography, which copied out the names with spelling changes. The Brittonic root behind the name is uncertain. A common suggestion links it to a word for a breast or rounded hill, which would suit the site's low rise above the rivers, but this remains a guess rather than a settled fact. English took the place name in a different direction. The Anglo-Saxons called the old fort "ceaster," meaning a Roman walled town, and added it to the Celtic name, producing "Manchester." The Latin Mancunium survives mainly as the source of the demonym "Mancunian," the term used for people from the city.