pugil

Borrowed from Latin pugillus, pugillum (“a fistful”), akin to pugnus (“the fist”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈpjuːd͡ʒɪl/

pugil (plural pugils)

1. (obsolete) As much as is taken up between the thumb and two first fingers; a pinch.
   • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “I. Century.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     Take violets , and infuse a good pugil of them in a quart of vinegar

   • 1778, William Lewis, The new dispensatory:

     Cinnamon, an ounce and a half; Rosemary flowers, six pugils […]

   • 1699, John Evelyn, Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets:

     Note, That by Parts is to be understood a Pugil; which is no more than one does usually take up between the Thumb and the two next Fingers.

   • 1989, Patrick O'Brian, The Thirteen-Gun Salute:

     This kind of success was all luck, and if a man had only a given amount for his own share, it was a shame to fritter away so much as a pugil.

• pugil stick

From pungō (“I sting, pierce”) +‎ -ilis. Lacks the present tense n-infix like figulus. Final -is was dropped in the nominative singular as in vigil.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈpu.ɡil/, [ˈpʊɡɪɫ̪]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpu.d͡ʒil/, [ˈpuːd͡ʒil]

pugil m (genitive pugilis); third declension

1. a boxer, pugilist
2. (figuratively) a hardened forehead

Third-declension noun.

• pugilicē

• Catalan: púgil
• English: pugilism, pugilist
• Italian: pugile
• Portuguese: púgil
• Spanish: púgil

• “pugil”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pugil”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pugil in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• pugil in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pugil”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers