zizania

Wikispecies

Borrowed from Latin zizania (“cockle, tares”).

• IPA^(key): /zɪˈzeɪniə/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪniə

zizania (plural zizanias)

1. Any of several aquatic North American grasses, of the genus Zizania, grown for their edible grain; wild rice.

Originally a neuter plural form (see zizā̆nium), which could be subject to a highly productive process of reinterpretation as collective feminine singular.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [zɪzˈzaː.ni.a], [zɪzˈza.ni.a]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [d̪͡z̪id̪ˈd̪͡z̪aː.ni.a]
• Note: the /a/ is apparently long in Sumerian, unattested in Greek, scanned variously in Latin. The length of the /i/ before the underlyingly-geminate /z/ is unknown.

zizā̆nia

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of zizā̆nium

zizā̆nia f (genitive zizā̆niae); first declension

1. alternative form of zizā̆nium (“tares; vices”)
   • 1267, anonymous author, Scribere proposui:

     Scribere proposui de contemptu mundano
     iam est hora surgere de sonpno mortis uano ·
     zizaniam spernere sumpto ui[r]tutum grano ·
     Surge surge uigila semper esto paratus ·

     I have set forth to write of contempt of the world.
     Now is the hour to arise from the vain sleep of death,
     to scorn the tares, choosing the grain of virtue:
     Arise, arise, be vigilant, always be prepared.

First-declension noun.

• “zīzā̆nĭa”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "ZIZANIA", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• "ZIZANIUM", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• 1 zīzānĭa in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette: “1,701/3”
• 2 zīzănĭa in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette: “1,701/3”