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natrix. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
natrix, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
natrix in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
natrix you have here. The definition of the word
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natrix, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Latin
Etymology
From Proto-Italic *natriks, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)nh₁-tr-ih₂-. Cognate with German Natter, English adder. According to a proposal of André Martinet, the /ks/ in the nominative singular developed from word-final *h₂s, and /ik/ subsequently spread from the nominative singular to other forms of the word by paradigmatic leveling; Schrijver 1991 rejects this hypothesis, but Rasmussen 1993 considers it plausible.
A pronunciation with a long vowel in the second syllable is attested by the time of Priscian (see Pronunciation below); this may have been caused by the much greater frequency of nouns ending in -īx, -īcis compared to those ending in -ĭx, -ĭcis, and more specifically by the possibility of reinterpreting the word as a feminine agent noun derived from the verb no, nāre (“swim”) and the suffix -trīx (“-tress”).
Pronunciation
The fragment of Lucilius cited below (definition 2) requires both vowels to be short in order for the line to scan as a hexameter. However, the 6th-century grammarian Priscian lists this word among deverbal nouns ending in -trīx with long ī, implying that by his time an analogically altered form with a long vowel in the second syllable was in use.
Noun
natrī̆x f or m (genitive natrī̆cis); third declension
- water snake
106 BCE – 43 BCE,
Cicero,
Lucullus 120.4:
- Cur deus, omnia nostra causa cum faceret (sic enim vultis), tantam vim natricum viperarumque fecerit, cur mortifera tam multa <ac> perniciosa terra marique disperserit.
c. 4 BCE – 65 CE,
Seneca the Younger,
Dialogi 4.31.8.2:
- Ne viperas quidem et natrices et si qua morsu aut ictu nocent effligeremus, si in reliquum mansuefacere possemus aut efficere ne nobis aliisve periculo essent; ergo ne homini quidem nocebimus quia peccavit, sed ne peccet, nec umquam ad praeteritum sed ad futurum poena referetur; non enim irascitur sed cavet.
c. 61 CE – 65 CE, Lucan,
Pharsalia 9.720:
- et natrix violator aquae, iaculique volucres
- Metaphor of disputed meaning; perhaps denoting either a penis or a type of whip.
2nd century BC,
Gaius Lucilius,
Saturae 2.72:
- si natibus natricem inpressit crassam et capitatam
- 2014 translation by Robert Cowan
- if s/he thrusts a thick natrix with a head on it into/onto my buttocks
- name of a plant
Pliny,
Natural History 27.107.1:
- Natrix vocatur herba, cuius radix evulsa virus hirci redolet.
Usage notes
Attested as masculine only once, in Lucan (quoted above under definition 1).
Declension
Third-declension noun.
Descendants
References
- ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “natrix, -icis”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 402
- ^ Rasmussen, Jens Elmegård (1993), REVIEW ARTICLE, "Peter Schrijver: The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Latin. Rodopi, Amsterdam - Atlanta, GA 1991 (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 2). XL + 616 pp." Acta Linguistica Hafniensia: International Journal of Linguistics, 26:1, 175-205
- ^ Ingram, John K. (1883) "Notes on Latin Lexicography. II.—On the Prosody of some Latin Words." Hermathena Vol. 4, No. 9, pp. 402-412 (11 pages), page 406. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23036279
- ^ Postgate, J.P. (1917) "Adnotanda in Latin Prosody." The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Oct., 1917), pp. 169-178 (10 pages); page 172
- ^ Adams, J.N. (1990) The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, JHU Press, →ISBN, page 31
- ^ Williams, Craig A (1999) Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 272
- ^ Cowan, Robert. (2014) "Cinna's Trouser Snake - or the Biter Bit? Alternative Interpretations of Cinna fr. 12 FRP", Antichthon 48, 95-108; page 104
Further reading
- “natrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “natrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- natrix in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- natrix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.