ῥινόκερως

Pronunciation

• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /riˈno.ce.ros/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /riˈno.ce.ros/^[1]

Forms

ῥῑνόκερως (rhīnókerōs) m (genitive ῥῑνοκέρωτος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek ῥίς (rhī́s, “nose”) + κέρας (kéras, “horn”): “nose-horn”.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest example is in Callixenus, who describes a procession of animals at Alexandria.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Strabo and Aelian describe the animal, and an inscription from Praeneste labels it.^[2] In the 2nd century AD Aquila used it in his translation of the Bible for the wild ox of Job and the Psalms.^[2] Hesychius knows it also as the name of a bird in Ethiopia, perhaps the hornbill.^[3][2] A late text speaks of “rhinoceros stone”, its horn.^[2]

Timeline

• 2nd century BC – Callixenus mentions the rhinoceros.^[2]
• 1st century BC – 1st century AD – Strabo describes it.^[2]
• 2nd century AD – Aquila uses it for the wild ox of the Bible.^[2]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Aelian describes it.^[2]
• 5th century AD (probably) – Hesychius also gives it as a bird of Ethiopia.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The rhinoceros.^[2][1]
2. (Aquila) A wild ox.^[2]
3. A bird of Ethiopia, perhaps the hornbill.^[3][2]

Related words

• ῥίς (rhī́s)
• κέρας (kéras)
• English rhinoceros

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)