pix

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /pɪks/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Homophones: picks, pics, pyx
• Rhymes: -ɪks

Etymology 1

First attested 1932, abbreviation of pictures, first used in Variety magazine, along with other similar words that the magazine calls slanguage [1].

Noun

pix pl (plural only)

1. (informal) Plural form of pic in the sense of "picture".
   • 1946, “Palisades Notes”, in The Billboard, Nielsen Business Media, Inc., ISSN 0006-2510, Volume 58, Number 37 (1946 September 14), page 82:

     Annual photo contest has brought in some pix by amateurs which are definitely in the professional category.

   • 1978, response to a letter to the editor, in American Motorcyclist, American Motorcyclist Association, ISSN 0277-9358, Volume 32, Number 2 (1978 February), page 4:

     Photo selection can be tricky with space limitations, Arthur, and we blew that one. Hope the Scott pix in our January issue made you feel better about this.

   • 1980, Iris Murdoch, Nuns And Soldiers:

     "But it's not much good piling up the pix if I can't sell them."

   • 2010, Lynn Powell, Framing Innocence: A Mother’s Photographs, a Prosecutor’s Zeal, and a Small Town’s Response, The New Press, →ISBN, pages 15–16:

     He nervously wrote down Amy’s instructions for what to say and how to behave if the police came back with a search warrant:

     • […]
     • take pix of damage afterward

2. Specifically, motion pictures; movies.

Etymology 2

See pyx.

Noun

pix (plural pixes)

1. Obsolete spelling of pyx [Late Middle English–19th c.]
   • 1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], chapter V, in Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], OCLC 1202978654, page 273:

     The slight breach was fortunately committed by a distant relation of the Archbishop of Toledo, and consisted merely in his entering the church intoxicated, (a rare vice in Spaniards), attempting to drag the matin preacher from the pulpit, and failing in that, getting astride as well as he could on the altar, dashing down the tapers, overturning the vases and the pix, and trying to scratch out, as with the talons of a demon, the painting that hung over the table, uttering all the while the most horrible blasphemies, and even soliciting the portrait of the Virgin in language not to be repeated.

---

Ixil

Verb

pix

1. to tie

References

• Dwight David Jewett and Marcos Willis, A' u u' uva'a uva' molel ca ink'a kuyolb'al atz tuch' yolb'al castiiya (Diccionario Ixil de Chajul - Español, Español - Ixil de Chajul) (1996)

---

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *pik- (“resin”), from Proto-Indo-European *peyH- (“fat”). Cognate with Ancient Greek πίσσα (píssa, “pitch, tar”), Lithuanian pikis (“pitch”), Latin pīnus (“pine”), fat. More at pine.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /piks/, [pɪks̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /piks/, [piks]

Noun

pix f (genitive picis); third declension

1. pitch, tar

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pix	picēs
Genitive	picis	picum
Dative	picī	picibus
Accusative	picem	picēs
Ablative	pice	picibus
Vocative	pix	picēs

Related terms

• piceus

Descendants

• → Albanian: pisë, peshgve
• Catalan: pega
• Dalmatian: pecla
• Dutch: pek
  • → Japanese: ペンキ
• → Old English: piċ
  • Middle English: picche, piche, pich
    • English: pitch
      • → Galician: piche
      • → Portuguese: piche
    • Scots: pick
• Franco-Provençal: peigi
• French: poix
• Galician: pez
• → Old High German: peh
  • German: Pech
    • → Dutch: pech
    • → Hungarian: pech
    • → Polish: pech
    • → Serbo-Croatian: pȅh
    • → Slovak: pech
  • Luxembourgish: Pech

• → Irish: pic
• Italian: pece, pegola
• Portuguese: pez
• Romanian: păcură
• Spanish: pez
• → Welsh: pyg

References

• pix in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• pix in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pix in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• pix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

---

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from English pick or Bic (a brand of ballpoint pen).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /piks/

Noun

pix n (plural pixuri)

1. ballpoint pen

Declension

Declension of pix

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) pix	pixul	(niște) pixuri	pixurile
genitive/dative	(unui) pix	pixului	(unor) pixuri	pixurilor
vocative	pixule		pixurilor

References

• pix in DEX online - Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)
• Romanian vocabulary. In: Haspelmath, M. & Tadmor, U. (eds.) World Loanword Database. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.