pix

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /pɪks/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Homophones: picks, pics, pyx
• Rhymes: -ɪks

Etymology 1

Abbreviation of pictures, first used in Variety in 1916, along with other similar words that the magazine calls slanguage.

Noun

pix pl (normally plural, singular pic)

1. (informal) plural of pic (“picture”)
   • 1946, “Palisades Notes”, in The Billboard, Nielsen Business Media, Inc., ISSN 0006-2510, Volume 58, Number 37 (1946 September 14), page 82:

     Annual photo contest has brought in some pix by amateurs which are definitely in the professional category.

   • 1978, response to a letter to the editor, in American Motorcyclist, American Motorcyclist Association, ISSN 0277-9358, Volume 32, Number 2 (1978 February), page 4:

     Photo selection can be tricky with space limitations, Arthur, and we blew that one. Hope the Scott pix in our January issue made you feel better about this.

   • 1980, Iris Murdoch, Nuns And Soldiers:

     "But it's not much good piling up the pix if I can't sell them."

   • 2010, Lynn Powell, Framing Innocence: A Mother’s Photographs, a Prosecutor’s Zeal, and a Small Town’s Response, The New Press, →ISBN, pages 15–16:

     He nervously wrote down Amy’s instructions for what to say and how to behave if the police came back with a search warrant:
     […]
     take pix of damage afterward

2. (specifically) Motion pictures; movies.
   • [1916 December 8, “News of the film world”, in Variety, volume XLV, number 2, page 27:

     Mutual has started a campaign to substitute a word for the term “Movies.” It contemplates the use of the word “Pix” and thinks this would be welcomed as a short word for the headline writer and amply descriptive.]

Related terms

• pixel

Etymology 2

A variant of pyx.

Noun

pix (plural pixes)

1. Obsolete spelling of pyx [Late Middle English–19th c.]
   • 1509 April 20 (Gregorian calendar), Henry VII of England, edited by [Thomas Astle], The Will of King Henry VII, London: Printed for the editor; and sold by T[homas] Payne, […]; and B[enjamin] White, […], published 1775, →OCLC, pages 37–38:

     [F]oraſmuche as we have often and many tymes, to our inwarde regrete and diſpleaſure, ſeen at oure Jen, in diverſe and many Churches of our Realme, the holie Sacrament of the Aulter kept in ful simple and inhoneſt Pixes, ſpecially Pixes of copre and tymbre: we have appointed and commaunded the Treſourer of our Chambre, and Maiſtre of our Juellhouſe, to cauſe to be made furthwith Pixes of ſilver and gilte, in a greate nombre, for the keping of the holie Sacrament of th'Aultre, after the faction of a Pixe that we have cauſed to be delivered to theim, […]

   • 16th–17th century, Rogers Ruding, “Of the Trial of the Pix”, in [John Yonge Akerman], editor, Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain and Its Dependencies; from the Earliest Period of Authentic History to the Reign of Victoria. […], volume I, London: Printed for John Hearne, […]; by Manning and Mason, […], published 1840, →OCLC, page 73:

     [T]he said Tresurer and other Officers of the sayd Mynts, to bring with them, at that tyme and place, all ther Pixes, and ther severall Indentures of Coynag, by and for the holle tyme the said Assaye shall be taken.

   • 1678, [Samuel Butler], “[The Third Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The Third and Last Part, London: […] Simon Miller, […], →OCLC, canto I, page 86:

     With Croſſes, Relicks, Crucifixes, / Beads, Pictures, Roſaries and Pixes: / The Tools of working out Salvation, / By meer Mechanick Operation.

   • 1702, [William Bromley], “[In Italy]”, in Several Years Travels through Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark and the United Provinces. […], London: […] A[bel] Roper, […], R. Basset […], and W. Turner […], →OCLC, page 52:

     They have Pixes and Chalices for the Bleſſed Sacrament five hundred and fifty, ſome of pure Gold, others of Silver and Criſtal; and among them, is one that was offer'd to our Bleſſed Saviour, by one of the three Kings, when they came to Worſhip him, and brought Preſents.

   • 1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], chapter V, in Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 273:

     The slight breach was fortunately committed by a distant relation of the Archbishop of Toledo, and consisted merely in his entering the church intoxicated, (a rare vice in Spaniards), attempting to drag the matin preacher from the pulpit, and failing in that, getting astride as well as he could on the altar, dashing down the tapers, overturning the vases and the pix, and trying to scratch out, as with the talons of a demon, the painting that hung over the table, uttering all the while the most horrible blasphemies, and even soliciting the portrait of the Virgin in language not to be repeated.

   • 1851, John Ruskin, “[Appendix] 12. Romanist Modern Art.”, in The Stones of Venice, volume I (The Foundations), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 373:

     He [Augustus Pugin] has a most sincere love for his profession, a hearty honest enthusiasm for pixes and piscinas; and though he will never design so much as a pix or piscina thoroughly well, yet better than most of the experimental architects of the day.

Verb

pix (third-person singular simple present pixes, present participle pixing, simple past and past participle pixed)

1. Obsolete spelling of pyx
   • 1545, John Bale, “[The Image of both Churches, Being an Exposition of the Most Wonderful Book of Revelation of St John the Evangelist.] The Twenty-second Chapter.”, in Henry Christmas, editor, Select Works of John Bale, […] (Parker Society for the Publication of the Works of the Fathers and Early Writers of the Reformed English Church; 1), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] The University Press, published 1849, →OCLC, page 628:

     The bread that was left of this consecration or breaking, which was so holy as the other, was neither housed nor churched, boxed nor pixed, but remained there still to the householders, to be eaten of whomsoever lusted.

   • 1583, John Foxe, “The Preface to the Reader”, in Josiah Pratt, editor, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe. […], 3rd edition, volume VI, London: George Seeley, […], published 1870, →OCLC, book X (The Beginning of the Reign of Queen Mary), page 361:

     Christ ordained the supper to be a taking matter, an eating matter, a distributing and remembering matter: contrary our mass-men make it a matter, not of taking, but of gazing, peeping, pixing, boxing, carrying, re-carrying, worshipping, stooping, kneeling, knocking, with "stoop down before," "hold up higher," "I thank God I see my Maker to-day," etc. Christ ordained it a table-matter: we turn it to an altar-matter.

   • 1842, “ASSA′Y”, in W[illiam] T[homas] Brande, assisted by Joseph Cauvin, editors, A Dictionary of Science, Literature, & Art: […], London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, […], →OCLC, page 95, column 2:

     [W]hen the money is coined it is not allowed to go out of the mint until pixed; that is, until it had been ascertained, by the assay of one piece taken out of each journeyweight of coin, that it is of standard purity: […]

   • 1891, Henry Campbell Black, “PIX”, in A Dictionary of Law […], St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 899:

     The ascertaining whether coin is of the proper standard is in England called "pixing" it; and there are occasions on which resort is had for this purpose to an ancient mode of inquisition called the "trial of the pix," before a jury of members of the Goldsmiths' Company.

Ixil

Verb

pix

1. to tie

References

• Dwight David Jewett and Marcos Willis, A' u u' uva'a uva' molel ca ink'a kuyolb'al atz tuch' yolb'al castiiya (Diccionario Ixil de Chajul - Español, Español - Ixil de Chajul) (1996)

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *piks, suggested to be dissimulated from earlier *pitks (compare development of texō), from Proto-Indo-European *pī́t-k-s ~ *pit-k-és, from *pī́ts (“resin”) +‎ *-ks, and related to pīnus (“pine”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /piks/, [pɪks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /piks/, [piks]

Noun

pix f (genitive picis); third declension

1. pitch, tar

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pix	picēs
Genitive	picis	picum
Dative	picī	picibus
Accusative	picem	picēs
Ablative	pice	picibus
Vocative	pix	picēs

Derived terms

• pica
  • Catalan: pega
  • Occitan: pega

    Languedocien: pea

    Nord-Occitan: peja

• piceus
• picō
• picula
  • Romanian: păcură
  • Dalmatian: pecla
  • Italian: pegola
  • Emilian: pegla, peigla
  • Lombard: pegla, pigla, pegola, pigola
  • Gascon: pegla
  • →? Proto-Slavic: *pьkъlъ, *pьkъlo n; *pьcьlъ (unless inherited from Balto-Slavic) (see there for further descendants)

Descendants

• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian: pece
  • Sicilian: pici
• Padanian:
  • ⇒ Emilian: peisa, pesa
  • ⇒ Lombard: pesa, peisa
  • Piedmontese: pèis, pais
• Northern Gallo-Romance:
  • Franco-Provençal: pege, peigi, pès
  • Old French: peiz
    • French: poix
• Ibero-Romance:
  • Galician: pez, piche
  • Portuguese: pez
  • Spanish: pez
• → Albanian: pisë, peshgve
• → Baltic:
  • Latvian: piķis
  • Lithuanian: pìkis
• → Proto-Brythonic: *pɨg (see there for further descendants)
• → Proto-West Germanic: *pik (see there for further descendants)

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from English pick or French Bic (a brand of ballpoint pen).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /piks/

Noun

pix n (plural pixuri)

1. ballpoint pen

Declension

Declension of pix

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) pix	pixul	(niște) pixuri	pixurile
genitive/dative	(unui) pix	pixului	(unor) pixuri	pixurilor
vocative	pixule		pixurilor

References

• pix in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)
• Romanian vocabulary. In: Haspelmath, M. & Tadmor, U. (eds.) World Loanword Database. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Swedish

Noun

pix

1. (slang) krona, SEK (Swedish unit of currency)

   Synonym: spänn

   Den kostar 100 pix

   It costs 100 SEK

2. (slang) benzodiazepine pills, like Xanax

   Synonyms: flödder, habb

References

• Swedish Police Authority list of drug slang