Lewis & Short

Parsing inflected forms may not always work as expected. If the following does not give the correct word, try Latin Words or Perseus.

āmento, āvi, ātum, 1, v. a. [amentum].

  1. I. Lit., to furnish with a strap or thong; esp. of the javelin, to the middle of which a strap was fastened, so that it might be thrown with greater force (very rare; only twice in Cic.): hastae amentatae, Cic. Brut. 78, 271.
    Trop., of discourse: amentatae hastae (i. e. apta et parata argumenta), Cic. de Or. 1, 57, 242 (so Juv. sagittae and jaculator, q. v.).
    Hence,
  2. II. Transf., poet., to hurl or dart the javelin by means of a thong: cum jaculum parvā Libysamentavit habenā, * Luc. 6, 221.
    And of the wind, which gives an impetus to motion, as a thong to the dart: amentante Noto, Sil. 14, 422.

āmentum, i, n. [ἅμμα, ἅπτω; v. apo], a strap or thong, esp. upon missile weapons, by means of which they were thrown with greater force (cf. amento): amenta, quibus, ut mitti possint, vinciuntur jacula sive solearum lora, Paul. ex Fest. p. 12 Müll.: epistola ad amentum deligata, Caes. B. G. 5, 48 Herz.: inserit amento digitos, Ov. M. 12, 321: amenta torquent, Verg. A. 9, 665: umor jaculorum amenta emollierat, Liv. 37, 41 al.
Rarely, a shoe-string: soleae sine amento, Plin. 34, 6, 14, § 31.