scarabaeus

English

Alternative forms

• scarabeus
• scarabæus

Etymology

From Latin scarabaeus. Doublet of scarab.

Noun

scarabaeus (plural scarabaei or scarabaeuses)

1. Obsolete form of scarab.
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     What did she mean about the scarabæus too? It was Leo's scarabæus, and had come out of the old coffer that Vincey had left in my rooms nearly one-and-twenty years before.

Latin

Alternative forms

• scarabēus

Etymology

Unknown, perhaps a foreign word, or with movable s- connected to the large family of words for shrimps, crayfish, scorpions and crabs beginning with /kaɾ/ mentioned at Persian خرچنگ (xarčang, “crab”) to which Ancient Greek κάραβος (kárabos, “beetle; crayfish”) is to be set in this context.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ska.raˈbae̯.us/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ska.raˈbe.us/,

Noun

scarabaeus m (genitive scarabaeī); second declension

1. A scarab, black dung beetle, revered in Ancient Egypt.
2. A beetle

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Descendants

References

• “scarabaeus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• scarabaeus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.