Catena
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A series of related items.
"And, on the contrary, there is a whole catena of authorities, beginning with Sir Robert Peel and ending with Mr. Lowe, which say that the Banking Department of the Bank of England is only a Bank like any other bank [...]"
- 2 a chain of connected ideas or passages or objects so arranged that each member is closely related to the preceding and following members (especially a series of patristic comments elucidating Christian dogma) wordnet
- 3 A series of distinct soils arrayed along a slope.
"The changes in soil characteristics from the crest to the foot of a slope are together known as a catena."
- 1 A surname from Italian.
Example
More examples"And, on the contrary, there is a whole catena of authorities, beginning with Sir Robert Peel and ending with Mr. Lowe, which say that the Banking Department of the Bank of England is only a Bank like any other bank [...]"
Etymology
From Medieval Latin catena, from Latin catēna (“chain”). Doublet of chain.
Borrowed from Italian Catena.
Related phrases
More for "catena"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.