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semivir. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
semivir, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
semivir in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
semivir you have here. The definition of the word
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Latin
Etymology
From semi- (“half”) + vir (“man”).
Pronunciation
Noun
sēmivir m (genitive sēmivirī); second declension
- a half-man, half man and half beast, semihomo, e.g., the centaur Chiron
8 CE,
Ovid,
Fasti 5.379–380:
- Nocte minus quārtā prōmet sua sīdera Chīrōn
sēmivir et flāvī corpore mixtus equī.- less the fourth night, Chiron will bring forth his stars:
a half-man, and joined with the body of a tawny horse.
(See: Centaur; Chiron; Centaurus.)
- (transferred) a half-man in a derogatory sense of seeming effeminate or unmanly
29 BCE – 19 BCE,
Virgil,
Aeneid 4.215–217:
- “Et nunc ille Paris cum sēmivirō comitātū,
Maeoniā mentum mitrā crīnemque madentem
subnexus, raptō potītur .- “And now, that Paris – with his troupe of half-men, and his pomaded hair in a Maeonian turban tied under his chin – holds tight what he has stolen .”
(As Paris took Helen, Aeneas has taken Dido; and so a jealous King Iarbas says that the outsiders’ appearance is unmanly, and perhaps implies that they could be eunuchs.)
- castrated man, eunuch
- hermaphrodite
Declension
Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -r).
References
- “semivir”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- semivir in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.