• vagitus •
Pronunciation: vê-jay-tês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. The first cry of a new-born baby. 2. The cry or wailing of any small child.
Notes: Apparently, today's intriguing word is so rarely used, no dictionary compiler knows what its plural would be: vagiti or vagituses. You are always safe with the latter. This word is used primarily in medicine but there is no reason why the rest of us cannot use it, too.
In Play: One of the most important events of human life is the sound of the first cry of a newborn infant: "It was a difficult birth but all the pain was erased by the sound of my new son's vagitus." However, the meaning of this word has important metaphorical implications, too: "The new president's inaugural speech was the vagitus of an era of radical innovation at the college."
Word History: Today's Good Word is Latin vagitus "the crying, squalling of young children", the noun from the verb vagire "to cry, squall". The same original root, *uagh-, underlies Sanskrit vagnu "a cry, sound" and Greek ekho "a sound, echo". (I think everyone will echo my thanks to M. Henri Day for suggesting such an interesting word as we have read about today.)
VAGITUS
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VAGITUS
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Grand Panjandrum
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As is, if I am not misinformed, that charming little word «virus». Others have claimed that as a noun («stuff» to the cognoscenti), it belonged to the 3rd declension, to be declined like «opus», «opera». Thus some of my colleagues here in Sweden insist on «vira» in the plural. The problem is, however, that plural forms of «virus» are said to be undocumented in surviving Latin texts.......
But a vagitus is a 4th declension noun, like apparatus, whose plural is the same as its singular: vagitus.
Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
Henri, this confuses me:
-Tim
...don't know squat about Latin.
Wouldn't the correctly formed plural be, in such a case, virera, which is rather unwieldy?Others have claimed that as a noun («stuff» to the cognoscenti), it belonged to the 3rd declension, to be declined like «opus», «opera». Thus some of my colleagues here in Sweden insist on «vira» in the plural.
-Tim
...don't know squat about Latin.
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- Grand Panjandrum
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No, virus, i (virus, poison, venom) is a 2nd declension noun. What is interesting about it is that it is a neuter noun despite the (predominantly masculine) -us. Its plural is (or would be) correctly viri, just like any other second declension noun that ends in -us, but it's a mass noun, which complicates things further. I would say no to vira, but similar cases of -us nouns that ended up having -a plural are not unheard of: cf. carbasus (pl. carbasa), locus (pl. loca/loci), jocus (pl. joca/joci), frenum (pl. frena/freni).As is, if I am not misinformed, that charming little word «virus». Others have claimed that as a noun («stuff» to the cognoscenti), it belonged to the 3rd declension, to be declined like «opus», «opera». Thus some of my colleagues here in Sweden insist on «vira» in the plural. The problem is, however, that plural forms of «virus» are said to be undocumented in surviving Latin texts....
This is interesting.
Brazilian dude
Languages rule!
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- Grand Panjandrum
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The impression I get from reading the material to which you kindly provide a link, BD, is that there exists some evidence for Latin «virus» as both a 2nd and a 4th declension noun, but that - as I had understood previously - there is no evidence for plural forms. Interesting also to note a tendency for it to remain invariant in other cases than the nominative. I remember corresponding on this matter with a Latin scholar retained by Svenska läkarförbundet many years ago ; he was opposed to forms like «vira» and thought that the plural in Swedish should be «virus»....
Henri
Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
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