obex

English

Etymology

From Latin obex (“barrier, wall”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊ.bɛks/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊˌbɛks/

Noun

obex (plural obices)

1. (anatomy) A small, crescentic fold of white matter that covers the inferior angle of the floor of the fourth ventricle.

References

• “obex”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “obex”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Latin

Etymology

From obiciō (“to throw or put before or towards”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈoː.beks/, [ˈoːbɛks̠] or IPA^(key): /ˈo.beks/, [ˈɔbɛks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈo.beks/, [ˈɔːbeks]

In Classical Latin, the forms of this word built on the oblique stem obic- may have originally been pronounced with an unwritten /j/ sound, making the first syllable of the word /ob/ (which contains the short vowel /o/ and scans as a heavy syllable because of the coda consonant /b/). For example, in Attic Nights 4.17, Aulus Gellius indicates that the learned grammarian Sulpicius Apollinaris read obicibus with a short o and a doubled ("gemina") letter i where it occurs in Vergil's Georgics with heavy-light-light-heavy scansion; this implies a pronunciation /ob.ji.ki.bus/. The same situation of a single letter I potentially representing a sequence of the consonant /j/ and short vowel /i/ is found with the verb obiciō and a number of other prefixed verbs derived from iaciō.

Gellius criticizes as ignorant those who pronounce obiciēbat and subices with long vowels (i.e. /oː/ and /uː/) for the sake of the meter, a comment which implies that pronunciations with /ob.ji/ and /sub.ji/ were not universally used for derivatives of iacio during the second century, and may have been simplified in normal speech to /o.bi/ and /su.bi/ for many speakers of that time.

There is less evidence about the Classical Latin pronunciation of the nominative singular form obex as the word was rarely used in this form.

Noun

ō̆bex m or f (genitive ō̆bicis); third declension

1. (literal) a bolt, bar; a barrier, wall
   • c. 37 BCE – 30 BCE, Virgil, Georgics 2.1:

     unde tremor terris, qua vi maria alta tumescant
     obicibus ruptis rursus que in se ipsa residant

2. (transferred sense) a hindrance, impediment, obstacle

Inflection

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ō̆bex	ō̆bicēs
Genitive	ō̆bicis	ō̆bicum
Dative	ō̆bicī	ō̆bicibus
Accusative	ō̆bicem	ō̆bicēs
Ablative	ō̆bice	ō̆bicibus
Vocative	ō̆bex	ō̆bicēs

Related terms

• obiciō

Descendants

Descendants of ō̆bex in other languages

• → English: obex
• → Portuguese: óbice
• → Spanish: óbice

References

• “obex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “obex”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• obex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “obex”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “obex”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin