Centesimus Tricesimus Sextus: April 19, 2009: Caecus
Theme for this month: Word chains
caecus, caeca, caecum
Definition: blind; invisible, secret; dark, obscure; (fig) aimless, unknown, uncertain
Idioms: apparet caeco: it's as clear as daylight; domus caeca: a house with no windows; caeca die emere: buy on credit; caecum corpus: the back
Sententia: Pyramus et Thisbe caeca Fortuna discerpsi sunt, nece ob leaenam et amorem fiens.
Pyramus and Thisbe were torn apart by blind Fortune, with destruction occurring because of a lioness and love.
This word is rather common, in the AP syllabus at least particularly in the epic poems. It occurs in every single book of Vergil's Aeneid and in Catullus 64, an epillion (a mini-epic poem). "Caecus" is etymologically related to the Gothic word "haihs," meaning one-eyed, and the Sanskrit word "kekarah," meaning squinting.
NB: Bold and underline == macron