fulica

Forms

fulica f (genitive fulicae); first declension^[1] Editors restore a shortened fulca for the metre in a fragment of Furius Antias.^[2]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[3] It is often compared with Old High German belihha (“coot”), from Proto-Germanic *bel-ik-, and with a root Proto-Indo-European *bʰelH- (“white”) seen in Lithuanian bãlas (“white”) and Ancient Greek φαλός (phalós, “white”), but de Vaan objects that Latin ⟨ful-⟩ can only come from *-ol-, that the suffixes do not match, and that nothing shows the bird was named for anything white.^[3] The suffix -ik- recurs in other bird names.^[3] The OLD compares Ancient Greek φαλαρίς (phalarís), with a “perhaps”.^[2] Wiktionary and Köbler give Pokorny's derivation from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine”).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler give the comic poet Afranius as its first author.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a water bird, probably the coot, though some authors mean an unidentified seabird.^[2] It appears in weather lore: Virgil gives as a sign of a storm that marīnae / in siccō lūdunt fulicae “the sea coots play on dry land”, and Pliny the Elder says their cries at dawn foretell wind.^[5][2] Ovid has waters thronged with divers and marsh coots.^[5][6]

Christian authors met it in the Psalms: the Roman Psalter has fulicae where the Vulgate has herōdiī, and Cassiodorus describes it as a tame black bird smaller than a duck.^[5] Jerome lists it among birds fit to eat.^[5]

Timeline

• 2nd half of the 2nd century BC – Afranius and Furius Antias use it.^[3][5][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil makes coots playing on dry land a sign of storm.^[5][2][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid has waters full of marsh coots.^[5][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder says their cries at dawn forecast wind.^[5][4]
• c. 485–c. 580 AD – Cassiodorus describes it as a tame black bird smaller than a duck.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A water bird, probably the coot.^[2][6][1]
2. An unidentified seabird.^[2][5]

Usage notes

Cicero, in his version of Aratus, has a form fulix “the white fulix”;^[5][6] Lewis & Short treat it as the same word, while de Vaan lists it as a derivative meaning “heron”.^[6][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press