pituita

English

Etymology

From Latin pītuīta (“mucus, phlegm”). Doublet of pip.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɪˈtjuːɪtə/

Noun

pituita (uncountable)

1. (medicine, now only historical) Phlegm; mucus.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
     , Book I (New York 2001 edition), p.148:

     Pituita, or phlegm, is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder part of the chylus […]

Latin

Etymology

Unknown. Has been related to *peyH- (“fat”) but not convincing.

Noun

pītuīta f (genitive pītuītae); first declension

1. mucus, phlegm
2. rheum, head cold

Declension

First-declension noun

	singular	plural
nominative	pītuīta	pītuītae
genitive	pītuītae	pītuītārum
dative	pītuītae	pītuītīs
accusative	pītuītam	pītuītās
ablative	pītuītā	pītuītīs
vocative	pītuīta	pītuītae

Descendants

• ⇒ Medieval Latin: pīpīta
  • Italo-Romance:
    • Italian: pipita
    • Neapolitan: pepita, ⇒ pepitula
    • Sicilian: pipita, ⇒ pipìtula
  • North-Italian:
    • Friulian: pivida
  • Gallo-Italic:
    • Emilian: puìda, pavìa, piuvida, puvida
    • Ligurian: péja
    • Lombard: puìda, puvida, piida, pivida
    • Piedmontese: pëvìa, puvìa, poìa, poìja, puìa
    • Romagnol: puvida, povida
  • Ibero-Romance:
    • Galician: pebida, pebide
    • Portuguese: pevide
  • ⇒ Vulgar Latin: *pippīta
    • Inherited:
      • Catalan: pepida, pipida
      • Franco-Provençal: pépia, pepi, pipi
      • French: pépie
      • Gascon: pepida, pepita
      • Occitan: pepida
    • Borrowed:
      • → Middle Dutch: pippe, pip
        • Dutch: pip
        • → Middle English: pippe
          • English: pip
      • → Middle Low German: pip
      • → Old High German: pfipfiz, pfiffiz, (Central German) pipz, *pippiz
        • Middle High German: phiphiz, pippis
          • Alemannic German: Pfiffi
          • German: Pips, (obsolete) Pfipfs
          • → Polish: pypeć

Further reading

• AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 1141: “la pipita” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it
• “pituita”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pituita”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pituita 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)
• pituita in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.