Translingual

Proper noun

Xiphias m

1. A taxonomic genus within the family Xiphiidae – the swordfish.

Hyponyms

• (genus): Xiphias gladius - species

See also

• Xiphias on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Xiphias on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

English

Noun

xiphias

1. A swordfish.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.xii:

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

   • 1700, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol 3, p. 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, trans. Pliny, Natural History, 32.vi:

     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 [...].

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

     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

Latin

xiphiās (a swordfish)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈksi.pʰi.aːs/, [ˈksɪ.pʰi.aːs]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈksi.fi.as/, [ˈksiː.fi.as]

Noun

xiphiās m ‎(genitive xiphiae); first declension

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

Inflection

First declension, masculine Greek type with nominative singular in -ās.

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
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “xiphias”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.