byssus

See also: Byssus

English

A mussel (genus Mytilus), attached to a rock by its byssus (filaments)

Etymology

From New Latin byssus (“sea silk”), from Latin byssus (“fine cotton or cotton stuff, silk”), from , from Hebrew בּוּץ (búts), Aramaic בּוּצָא (būṣā).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɪ.səs/

Noun

byssus (usually uncountable, plural byssi or byssuses)

1. An exceptionally fine and valuable fibre or cloth of ancient times. Originally used for fine flax and linens, the word was later extended to fine cottons, silks, and sea silk.
2. The long fine silky filaments excreted by several mollusks (particularly ) by which they attach themselves to the sea bed, and from which sea silk is manufactured.
3. (mycology) The stipe or stem of some fungi which are particularly thin and thread-like.

Related terms

• byssaceous
• byssal
• byssiferous
• byssine
• byssinosis
• byssoid
• byssogenous
• byssolite

Translations

filaments of molluscs

• Maori: kumikumi
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Spanish: biso (es) m

References

• The Compact edition of the Oxford English dictionary: complete text reproduced micrographically and Supplement. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. 1987
• Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged) 1976. G. & C. Merriam Co.

---

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek βύσσος (bússos, “a very fine yellowish flax and the linen woven from it”), from Hebrew בּוּץ (búts), Aramaic בּוש (bus).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈbys.sus/, [ˈbʏs̠ːʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈbis.sus/, [ˈbisːus]

Noun

byssus m (genitive byssī); second declension

1. byssus

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	byssus	byssī
Genitive	byssī	byssōrum
Dative	byssō	byssīs
Accusative	byssum	byssōs
Ablative	byssō	byssīs
Vocative	bysse	byssī

Descendants

• Translingual:

References

• “byssus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• byssus 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)
• “byssus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “byssus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin