syllabusn.

Etymology: < modern Latin syllabus, usually referred to an alleged Greek σύλλαβος . Syllabus appears to be founded on a corrupt reading syllabos in some early printed editions—the Medicean manuscript has sillabos —of Cicero Epp. ad Atticum iv. iv, where the reading indicated as correct by comparison with the manuscript readings in iv. v. and viii. is sittybas or Greek σιττύβας , accusative plural of sittyba , σιττύβα parchment label or title-slip on a book. (Compare Tyrrell and Purser Correspondence of Cicero nos. 107, 108, 112, Comm. and Adnot. Crit.) Syllabos was græcized by later editors as συλλάβους , from which a spurious σύλλαβος was deduced and treated as a derivative of συλλαμβάνειν to put together, collect (compare syllable n.). In the passage from St. Augustine's Confessions xiii. xv. (‘ibi legunt [sc. angeli] sine syllabis temporum quid velit aeterna voluntas tua’) commonly adduced as further evidence of Latin syllabus, the word is clearly syllaba syllable.