nautilus

Forms

nautilus m (genitive nautilī); second declension^[1] It is also written nautilos, the Greek form.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ναυτίλος (nautílos, “seafarer, sailor; nautilus”),^[1][3][4] which is related to ναύτης (naútēs, “seaman”) and ναῦς (naûs, “ship”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder (23/24–79 AD)^[3] is the first to use it, for a shellfish named for sailing like a ship.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

It remained the name of this sea creature, the paper nautilus or argonaut, which sails in its shell.^[4][6][1] English took it over about 1600; in Pliny it covered a kind of marine snail.^[7]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the nautilus.^[4][3]
• c. 1600 – Borrowed into English as nautilus.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The nautilus or argonaut, a sea creature that sails in its shell.^[2][4][6]

Related words

• nauplius
• nāviger
• English nautilus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ Gardani, Francesco; Pellegrini, Matteo et al. (2026), DynaMorphPro: loanwords, conversions and class shifts in Latin and Old Italian, CIRCSE / LiLa, github.com/CIRCSE/DynaMorphPro (CC BY-SA 4.0)
6. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com