squalus

Uncertain.

• Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷálos (“sheatfish”), cognate with Ancient Greek ἄσπαλος (áspalos), Avestan 𐬐𐬀𐬭𐬀 (kara, “kind of fish”), Old Prussian kalis, and Old English hwæl (“whale”); more information at whale.
• De Vaan suggests that it might be related to Latin squāma (“scale”). De Vaan proposes that the term came to refer to a species of fish based on its scales. If this theory is accepted, the term must be pronounced as squālus.

If pronounced as squalus

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key):
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key):

If pronounced as squālus

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key):
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key):

squalus m (genitive squalī); second declension

1. a kind of large sea fish, thought to be a shark
   • 23 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis 9.42:

     planorum piscium alterum est genus, quod pro spina cartilaginem habet, ut raiae, pastinacae, squatinae, torpedo et quos bovis, lamiae, aquilae, ranae nominibus graeci appellant. quo in numero sunt squali quoque, quamvis non plani. haec graece in universum σελάχη appellavit aristoteles primus hoc nomine iis inposito. nos distinguere non possumus, nisi si cartilaginea appellare libeat. omnia autem carnivora sunt talia et supina vescuntur, ut in delphinis diximus, et cum ceteri pisces ova pariant, hoc genus solum, ut ea quae cete appellant, animal parit, excepta quam ranam vocant.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Second-declension noun.

• According to De Vaan, the length of the vowel <a> is unknown as the word only occurs in prose.
• According to the archaeozoologist Andrea Guaspari, the "squalus" most likely referred to a galeomorph or a squalomorph

• squatus

Possibly related to squāma (“scale”), of unknown origin. In the sense of dirty, unkempt, this word has traditionally been associated with the cognates listed at cālīgō (“darkness, mist”), although these associations are tenuous.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key):
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key):

squālus

1. unkempt, dirty

First/second-declension adjective.

• squālor
• squāleō
• squālidus

• “squalus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “squalus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• squalus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 584
• Andrea Guasparri (2022) “The Roman classification and nomenclature of aquatic animals: an annotated checklist (with a focus on ethnobiology)”, in Anthropozoologica‎, volume 57, number 2, →DOI, pages 19–100
• Pokorny, Julius (1959) Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 634