glaucus

See also: Glaucus

English

two glaucuses Glaucus atlanticus (left) and Glaucus marginatus

Etymology

From Ancient Greek γλαυκός (glaukós, “blue-green, blue-grey”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡlɔːkəs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡlɔkəs/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɡlɑkəs/
• Rhymes: -ɔːkəs
• Homophone: glaucous

Noun

glaucus (plural glaucuses)

1. Any member of the genus Glaucus of nudibranchiate mollusks, found in the warmer latitudes, swimming in the open sea, strikingly colored with blue and silvery white.
2. A desert lime (Citrus glauca), a thorny shrub species endemic to semi-arid regions of Australia.
   • 1833, Charles Sturt, Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete‎^[1]:

     This pass is extremely abrupt, and is covered with glaucus, the low scrub I have noticed as common to the sand-stone formation.

Synonyms

• (nudibranchiate mollusk): sea swallow, blue angel, blue glaucus, blue dragon, blue sea slug, blue ocean slug

References

• Glaucus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Glaucus on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Glaucus on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• Citrus glauca on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Citrus on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Citrus glauca on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈɡɫau̯.kʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈɡlaːu̯.kus]

Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek γλαυκός (glaukós).

Adjective

glaucus (feminine glauca, neuter glaucum); first/second-declension adjective

1. (original Greek sense, debatable, of eyes) shining

   Synonym: splendidus

2. blue, green like aquamarine, often associated with silvery-green or dark green foliage, waters, sea and darkness (according to a gloss by Placidus, it describes the sea when it is whitened with currents)

   Synonyms: viridis, caeruleus

   • c. 140 BCE – 104 BCE, Accius, Tragedies Bacchae.15:

     Deinde ab iugulō pectus glaucō pampinō obnexae obtegunt.

     Then they cover their breasts from the neck down with the blue vine.

   • c. 37 BCE – 30 BCE, Virgil, Georgics 2.13:

     glaucā cānentia fronde salicta

     Willow groves, hoary with their blue foliage.

   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 6.415–416:

     Tandem trāns fluuium incolumīs uātemque uirumque / īnfōrmī līmō glaucāque expōnit in uluā.

     At last, bringing them unharmed across the river, he [Charon] leaves the seeress and the man among the shapeless mud and the blue sedge.

3. (rare) synonym of caesius
4. blue-black

   Synonyms: ferrūgineus, caeruleus

   • c. 37 BCE – 30 BCE, Virgil, Georgics 3.80–82, (NB: this passage in context promotes farmer values and was against contemporary urban trends like valorizing shining white horses used in triumphs.):

     Honestī [equi] / spādīces glaucīque, color dēterrimus albīs / et gilvō.

     Good [horses] are red and blue. The worst coat have the white horses and the dun horse

   • c. 600 CE – 625 CE, Isidorus Hispalensis, Etymologiae XIX.XXVIII.7:

     Glaucus color est ferrūgineus subniger.

     'Glaucus' is a dark [blue], almost black color.

5. (medicine) afflicted with an eye disease that prevents seeing

   (Can we add an example for this sense? )

Usage notes

• At least in prose, not used for Egyptian turquoise, but beryl is described with this color.
• Tends to denote a variant of caeruleus (“deep (blue)”) that is modified with white (not necessarily in a simple hue-adjustment way), which leads to it being of different hues. It is relatively often associated with the sea. Cicero implicitly translated the word with caeruleus when he mentioned the color of Neptune's eyes according to Greek tradition.
• In the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae dictionary, the proper color significance of glaucus in Latin is considered to be a kind of green-admixed deep blue color of seawater (aquamarine?), although the notion is noted to be unstable, and to represent other modifications of what is caeruleus. Caution is required in interpreting Ancient Greek and Latin colors in terms of simple hues.
• A gloss is known for glaucus that defines it as "yellow or red".

Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

	singular				plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	glaucus	glauca	glaucum		glaucī	glaucae	glauca
genitive	glaucī	glaucae	glaucī		glaucōrum	glaucārum	glaucōrum
dative	glaucō	glaucae	glaucō		glaucīs
accusative	glaucum	glaucam	glaucum		glaucōs	glaucās	glauca
ablative	glaucō	glaucā	glaucō		glaucīs
vocative	glauce	glauca	glaucum		glaucī	glaucae	glauca

Derived terms

• subglaucus

Related terms

• glaucēum
• glaucōma
• glaucōpis

Descendants

• → Catalan: glauc
• → English: glaucous
• → French: glauque
  • → Romanian: glauc
• → Italian: glauco
• → Portuguese: glauco
• → Romanian: glauc
• → Spanish: glauco
• Translingual: See glauc at the Catalogue of Life 

See also

Colors in Latin · colōrēs (layout · text)

albus, candidus, cānus, marmoreus (poetic), eburneus (poetic), niveus (poetic), argenteus (poetic), lacteus (poetic)	rāvus, pullus, mūrīnus (of livestock)	niger, āter, furvus, fuscus ("swarthy"), piceus (poetic)
ruber, russus, rūbidus (dark), flammeus (poetic); rutilus, pūniceus, spādīx (poetic), sanguineus (poetic)	rūfus, rutilus, rōbus (of oxen), croceus (poetic), aureus (poetic); fulvus (poetic), niger (of eyes), badius (of horses)	lūteus, flāvus ("blond"), lūridus, gilvus (of horses), helvus (of cattle); cēreus (poetic)
viridis, flāvus (poetic)	viridis, herbeus (of eyes), fulvus (poetic)	viridis, glaucus (poetic), caeruleus (poetic, only dark)
	glaucus (poetic), caeruleus, caesius (of eyes)	caeruleus, līvidus, ferrūgineus (poetic), glaucus (poetic)
violāceus	purpureus (underlying shade)	roseus

Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek γλαῦκος (glaûkos, “an edible grey fish”).

Noun

glaucus m (genitive glaucī); second declension

1. a bluish-grey colored fish of uncertain identity, perhaps the derbio

Declension

Second-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	glaucus	glaucī
genitive	glaucī	glaucōrum
dative	glaucō	glaucīs
accusative	glaucum	glaucōs
ablative	glaucō	glaucīs
vocative	glauce	glaucī

Further reading

• “glaucus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “glaucus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “glaucus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• "glaucus", 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)