xiphias

See also: Xiphias

English

WOTD – 26 April 2011

Etymology

Borrowed from translingual Xiphias or Latin xiphiās (“swordfish”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈzɪfiəs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

xiphias (plural xiphias)

1. Synonym of swordfish
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Huge Ziffius, whom Mariners eschew / No lesse, then rockes, as travellers informe […]

   • 1700, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 3, page 38:

     S. Malpighi having dissected the Head of a Xiphias or Sword Fish, which hath a very big Eye, observ'd that the middle of the Optick Nerve is nothing else, but a large Membrane, folded according to its length in many Doubles almost like a Fan, and invested by the Dura Mater.

   • 1857, Bostock & Riley, “part 32.vi”, in Natural History, translation of original by Pliny:

     Trebius Niger informs us that […] the xiphias, or, in other words, the sword-fish, has a sharp-pointed muzzle, with which it is able to pierce the sides of a ship and send it to the bottom […]

   • 23 May 1863, Prof. Huxley, “Structure and development of the vertebrate skeleton”, in The Lancet:

     In the xiphias, you observe, the enormous elongation of the head is produced by the elongation of the jaws proper – that is to say, of the pre-maxilla and nasal bones.

Translations

xiphias — see swordfish

Latin

xiphiās (a swordfish)

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ξιφίας (xiphías), derived from ξίφος (xíphos, “sword”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈksi.pʰi.aːs/, [ˈks̠ɪpʰiäːs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈksi.fi.as/, [ˈksiːfiäs]

Noun

xiphiās m (genitive xiphiae); first declension

1. a swordfish, Xiphias gladius
2. a sword-shaped comet

Declension

First-declension noun (masculine Greek-type with nominative singular in -ās).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	xiphiās	xiphiae
Genitive	xiphiae	xiphiārum
Dative	xiphiae	xiphiīs
Accusative	xiphiān	xiphiās
Ablative	xiphiā	xiphiīs
Vocative	xiphiā	xiphiae

Synonyms

• (swordfish): gladius

Related terms

• xiphion

Descendants

• Translingual: Xiphias

References

• “xiphias”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “xiphias”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• xiphias in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.