phoca
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin phōca, from Ancient Greek φώκη (phṓkē).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈfəʊkə/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
phoca (plural phocas or phocae)
- (obsolete) A seal. [16th–19th c.]
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- His charet swift in haste he thither steard,
Which with a teeme of scaly Phocas bound
Was drawne vpon the waues, that fomed him around.
- 1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 68:
- With tangled fins, behind, huge Phocæ glide,
And Whales and Grampi swell the distant tide.
Related terms
Anagrams
Latin
Alternative forms
- phōcē
Etymology
Etymology tree
Latin phoca
Borrowed from Ancient Greek φώκη (phṓkē).
Pronunciation
- (Classical Latin) IPA(key): [ˈpʰoː.ka]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): [ˈfɔː.ka]
Noun
phōca f (genitive phōcae); first declension
- seal (marine animal)
- Synonym: vitulus marīnus
- saepe vēnātī phōcae ad escam.
- They often hunted seals for meat.
- 8 CE, Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.300:
- nunc ibi dēfōrmēs pōnunt sua corpora phōcae
- Now ugly seals place their bodies there
- nunc ibi dēfōrmēs pōnunt sua corpora phōcae
Declension
First-declension noun.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | phōca | phōcae |
| genitive | phōcae | phōcārum |
| dative | phōcae | phōcīs |
| accusative | phōcam | phōcās |
| ablative | phōcā | phōcīs |
| vocative | phōca | phōcae |
Descendants
- →? Arabic: فُقْمَة (fuqma)
- → Catalan: foca
- → English: phoca
- → Middle French: phoque m or f
- →? Italian: foca f
- → Hungarian: fóka
- →? Portuguese: foca f
- >? Spanish: foca f
- → Translingual: Phoca
References
- “phoca”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “phoca”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- phoca in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.