Ducentesimum Sextum Latinum Verbum Diei: April 18, 2010

[Christina Wallin]

Theme for this month: Fera Animalia

sciurus, sciuri m.
Definition: a squirrel

Sententia: Pliny Naturalis Historia, Book 8.138

Provident tempestatem...sciuri.
Squirrels provide for the storm.

I apologize for the brevity of this section of a sentence, but there
isn't all that much material on squirrels...

Naturalis Historia is a massive, all-encompassing work by Pliny the
Elder in 37 books. Its purpose is as its title suggests: to document
natural history, from geography to animals to medicines. This book
land animals, and the particular section of the book in question deals
with "the Leontophone, the Once, Badgers, and Squirrels." I'm not
exactly sure what Leontophones or Onces are, though they are described
in a translation of chapter 38 here: <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/
holland/pliny8.html>.

And now, for a much less practical word than last week's "bos," which
is used only a few times as compared to many, many more than that.
But didn't you always want to know how to say "squirrel" in Latin,
such quotidian sights as squirrels are? Etymologically, "sciurus" was
borrowed from Greek "σκίουρος" (skiouros).


--
Subscription settings: http://groups.google.com/group/latinum_verbum_diei/subscribe?hl=en