byssus

See also: Byssus

English

A mussel (genus Mytilus), attached to a rock by its byssus (filaments)

Etymology

From New Latin byssus (“sea silk”), from Latin byssus (“fine cotton or cotton stuff, silk”), from Ancient Greek βύσσος (bússos, “a very fine yellowish flax and the linen woven from it”), from Hebrew בּוּץ (búts), Aramaic בּוּצָא (būṣā).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɪsəs/
• Rhymes: -ɪsəs

Noun

byssus (usually uncountable, plural byssi or byssuses)

1. The long fine silky filaments excreted by several mollusks (particularly Pinna nobilis) by which they attach themselves to the sea bed, and from which sea silk is manufactured.
2. Sea silk manufactured from these filaments.
3. (mycology) The stipe or stem of some fungi which are particularly thin and thread-like.

Related terms

• byssaceous
• byssal
• byssiferous
• byssine
• byssinosis
• byssogenous
• byssoid
• byssolite

 

Translations

filaments of molluscs

• Finnish: byssus
• Maori: kumikumi
• Polish: bisior (pl) m
• Spanish: biso (es) m

historic fiber

• Polish: bisior (pl) m

References

• The Compact edition of the Oxford English dictionary: complete text reproduced micrographically and Supplement, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1987
• Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged), G. & C. Merriam Co., 1976

Latin

Alternative forms

• bissus

Etymology

From Ancient Greek βύσσος (bússos, “a very fine yellowish flax and the linen woven from it”), from Biblical Hebrew בּוּץ (búts), Aramaic בּוש (bus).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈbys.sus/, [ˈbʏs̠ːʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈbis.sus/, [ˈbisːus]

Noun

byssus f (genitive byssī); second declension

1. byssus or sea silk

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	byssus	byssī
Genitive	byssī	byssōrum
Dative	byssō	byssīs
Accusative	byssum	byssōs
Ablative	byssō	byssīs
Vocative	bysse	byssī

Descendants

• Translingual: Byssus

References

• “byssus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• byssus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “byssus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “byssus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin