zizania

See also: Zizania

English

Wikispecies

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin zizania (“cockle, tares”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /zɪˈzeɪniə/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪniə

Noun

zizania (plural zizanias)

1. Any of several aquatic North American grasses, of the genus Zizania, grown for their edible grain; wild rice.

Latin

FWOTD – 3 February 2016

Etymology

Originally a neuter plural form (see zizā̆nium), which could be subject to a highly productive process of reinterpretation as collective feminine singular.

zizānia (cockle, tares)

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /zizˈzaː.ni.a/, [d̪͡z̪ɪz̪ˈd̪͡z̪äːniä] or IPA^(key): /zizˈza.ni.a/, [d̪͡z̪ɪz̪ˈd̪͡z̪äniä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /d͡zidˈd͡za.ni.a/, [d̪͡z̪id̪ˈd̪͡z̪äːniä]
• Note: the /a/ is apparently long in Sumerian, unattested in Greek, scanned variously in Latin. The length of the /i/ before the underlyingly-geminate /z/ is unknown.

Noun

zizā̆nia

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of zizā̆nium

Noun

zizā̆nia f (genitive zizā̆niae); first declension

1. Alternative form of zizā̆nium (“tares; vices”)
   • 1267, anonymous author, Scribere proposui:

     Scribere proposui de contemptu mundano
     iam est hora surgere de sonpno mortis uano ·
     zizaniam spernere sumpto ui[r]tutum grano ·
     Surge surge uigila semper esto paratus ·

     I have set forth to write of contempt of the world.
     Now is the hour to arise from the vain sleep of death,
     to scorn the tares, choosing the grain of virtue:
     Arise, arise, be vigilant, always be prepared.

Further reading

• “zīzā̆nĭa”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ZIZANIA 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)
• ZIZANIUM 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)
• 1 zīzānĭa in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette: “1,701/3”
• 2 zīzănĭa in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette: “1,701/3”