Is there a Latin term to denote the opposite of cf? I mean something like “not to be confused with” or “disambiguate”, for example, don’t confuse liber with līber, or caedō with cadō.
Hi there. I’ve never seen this use in modern texts, as we have for “cf”, but to express the idea of “disambiguate” you could say something like: distinguatur “x” a(b) “y”. As I said, it’s not usual, but it could be a solution. Let’s see what other people say about it.
“Cf.” stands for “confer” (i.e. “Compare,” imperative). There’s no negative counterpart. It would seem silly to say “noli conferre” (“Don’t compare”) or “cave ne conferas” (“Mind you don’t compare”). If you want to say “Not to be confused with” tico’s solution is tenable, or e.g. “cave ne caedo putes idem ac cado significare” (“Don’t go thinking caedo means the same as cado”).
Or you could use English!
In the meantime, I have found two interesting possibilities:
- The OLD has an abbreviation “dist” which stands for “distinguish, distinguishable, distinct”.
- There is a book by J.S. Howell called Discernenda Phrases and Idioms in Latin, on archive.org https://archive.org/details/discernendaphras00howe/page/n3/mode/2up which are lists of words that could easily be confused. So, maybe “disc” or “dis” could be possibilities.