ursus

See also: Ursus

Latin

Etymology tree

Proto-Italic *orssos

Latin ursus

From Proto-Italic *orssos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos (“bear”). The initial u- is unexpected, and may have arisen as a taboo distortion. For the outcome s of original *tḱ compare sinō.^[1] Doublet of Arctos.

ursus m (genitive ursī); second declension

Insular Romance:
- Sardinian: ursu, ussu
Balkano-Romance:
- Aromanian: ursu
- Romanian: urs
Italo-Dalmatian:
- Corsican: orsu
- Italian: orso
- Sicilian: ursu
- Venetan: ors, orso
Rhaeto-Romance:
- Friulian: ors
- Ladin: lors
- Romansch: urs, uors
Gallo-Italic:
- Emilian: åurs
Gallo-Romance:
- Catalan: os
- Occitan: ors
- Old French: urs
  - Middle French: ours
    - French: ours
  - Walloon: oûsse
Ibero-Romance:
- Aragonese: onso
- Asturian: osu
- Old Galician-Portuguese: usso, osso, husso
  - Fala: osu
  - Galician: oso
  - Portuguese: usso
- Old Spanish: osso
  - Spanish: oso, osso (obsolete), joso (New Mexico)
    - → Yaqui: hooso
- >? Ladino: lonso
Borrowings:
- → Esperanto: urso
- → Portuguese: urso
- → Translingual: Ursus

“ursus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“ursus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
ursus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
“ursus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
“ursus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray

^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 645