Questions tagged [animals]
The animals tag has no usage guidance.
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Has any etymologist entertained the possibility that "carpa" (carp) and "carassius" (crucian carp) are related?
As far as I can see, "carpa" (carp) appeared in Late Latin and it is usually considered to be a borrowing from an unattested Gothic word for that fish. "Carassius" also appeared in ...
- 4,908
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What is the Latin word for zebra?
I was searching for animals in Latin, and I ended up finding that the Romans knew zebras, and they used them to pull chariots. They also had the name "hippotigris". However, I couldn’t find ...
user11898
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Why does canis have both masculine and feminine forms?
Most nouns in Latin (and e.g. Spanish) have only one gender. Some other have two (epicene nouns). canis is one example (Separate Q: are there more examples?)
I wonder why is that the case for canis. ...
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How do you say "chicken" in Latin?
I know which words to use for specific types of chicken:
gallīna is a female (adult) chicken (hen).
gallus is a male (adult) chicken (cock, rooster); it also is used for the male (cock) of other ...
- 29.7k
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Did the Romans walk their dogs?
Here is a mosaic from Pompeii showing a Roman dog in a leash:
(Image from Wikipedia.)
Other similar pictures of mosaics are easy to find online, so I am confident that dog leashes were a well known ...
- 115k
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Latin names for groups of animals
How should I go about naming groups of animals in Latin?
Should I use a single word like grex in all situations, or should I use varying words depending on something?
In English — and I simplify for ...
- 115k
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Words for dogs, puppies, and small dogs in koine, and their connotations when applied to humans
Modern Greek has σκύλος for "dog," which is derived from ancient σκυλαξ, meaning "puppy." The generic word for a dog in ancient Greek was κυων. There is also a diminutive κυνάριον, ...
user3597
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How to decline a whale?
The Latin word cētus (a whale or some other major sea creature) behaves peculiarly.
In singular it is a normal-looking masculine cētus, but in plural it is a neuter cētē.
The ...
- 115k
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Is any animal neuter in Latin?
The word animal itself is neuter in Latin, but at least all of the common animal species seem to be masculine or feminine (or common gender):
canis, feles, equus, pardus, leo/leaena, lupus/lupa, ursus/...
- 115k
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Is there a Greek word meaning to purr?
I've heard that there is no known verb for purring (of a cat) in Greek. Is that true? Any qualified guess as to what verb a Greek might have used?
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What did the Greeks and Romans call their pets?
I know that some Greeks and Romans kept pet canēs, cattī, and even dracōnēs. My question now is: what did they name them?
In other words, do we have attestations of how the ancients named their pets? ...
- 68.3k
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Where does the word "thlypis"/θλυπις come from?
A number of New World warblers seem to have genus names that end in the element -thlypis. It's been hard for me to find information about the etymology of this element; I found a few sources on the ...
- 29.7k
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What's the Latin or Greek for ladybug?
I'm curious whether we know the Classical Latin or Greek names of the ladybug. I can't find the word in any of the dictionaries I have access to at the moment, and googling turns up this reddit thread ...
- 31.4k
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How did dogs and wolves compare in the Roman mind?
The Romans knew both dogs and wolves.
But how similar and how dissimilar did they think they were, as indicated by their literature?
I am looking for an understanding about Roman views on dogs and ...
- 115k
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Which verb do insects fly with?
Having read a question (and answer) about flies flying, I started to wonder whether flies would really fly with the verb volare.
I had always somehow imagined that volare referred to more elegant and ...
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