picus

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See also: Picus, PICUs, pičus, and píčus

Latin

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *pikos, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peyk- (“woodpecker; magpie”), whence also Latin pīca (“magpie”).

Romance evidence points to a form with -cc-, perhaps onomatopoeic and/or influenced by Vulgar Latin *pīccāre (“to strike, sting, peck”) and/or Proto-Germanic *pikkōną (“to pick, peck, prick”). Cf. Vulgar Latin *pīcca (“pick-axe”).

Cognate with Umbrian peico (acc.sg.), Sanskrit पिक (piká, “cuckoo”), German Specht (“woodpecker”), Swedish spett (“crowbar, skewer; kind of woodpecker”).

Pronunciation

Noun

pīcus m (genitive pīcī); second declension

  1. woodpecker
  2. griffin

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative pīcus pīcī
Genitive pīcī pīcōrum
Dative pīcō pīcīs
Accusative pīcum pīcōs
Ablative pīcō pīcīs
Vocative pīce pīcī

Related terms

Descendants

References

  1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “pīcus”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 464
  2. ^ Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “pīcus”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volumes 8: Patavia–Pix, page 432

Further reading

  • “picus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “picus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • picus 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)
  • picus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • “picus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • “picus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
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