A Latin word [plur. comit-es, from com- together + ī-re, it-um, to go] meaning ‘companion, comrade,’ which became in late L. a designation for an attendant of the prince, and for the occupant of a state office (as the Comes Littoris Saxonici in Britain), and in the Middle Ages, a title of rank = OE. eorl, surviving in F. comte, Eng. COUNT. The Latin word is occasionally employed in certain technical uses, as
a. Eccl. Antiq. A book containing the epistles and gospels read at mass, esp. the Roman missal lectionary attributed to St. Jerome.
b. Music. The repetition of the ‘dux’ or subject of a fugue in another part, usually at the interval of a fifth above or a fourth below.
c. Anat. A companion artery, vein, nerve, etc.
d. Astron. A small companion star in any duplex, triplex, or other ‘system.’
1683. Cave, Ecclesiastici, Introd. 56. Have the Comitative Honour, or the same Place and Dignity which the Comites who had well discharg’d their trust had conferr’d upon them.
1838. Penny Cycl., XI. 2/2, s.v. Fugue, When the subject … or dux … is comprised between the tonic and the dominant, the answer (or comes) must be given in the notes contained between the dominant and the octave.
1844. Lingard, Anglo Sax. Ch. (1858), II. xi. 187. The Comes, or book of Gospels and Epistles for all the Sundays and festivals in the year.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 263. That the sheriff was originally the deputy of the comes or earl.
1867–77. G. F. Chambers, Astron., Vocab. 914. The smaller of two stars forming a ‘Double Star’ is often called the comes of the principal star.
1875. T. Hayden, Dis. Heart, 7. Their arterial comites with the subclavian arteries.
1880. Grove, Dict. Mus., Dux (leader), an early term for the first subject in a fugue—that which leads; the answer being the comes or companion.
