natrix

From Proto-Italic *natriks, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)nh₁-tr-ih₂-.[1] Cognate with German Natter, English adder. According to a proposal of André Martinet, the /ks/ in the nominative singular developed from word-final *h₂s, and /ik/ subsequently spread from the nominative singular to other forms of the word by paradigmatic leveling; Schrijver 1991 rejects this hypothesis, but Rasmussen 1993 considers it plausible.[2]

A pronunciation with a long vowel in the second syllable is attested by the time of Priscian (see Pronunciation below); this may have been caused by the much greater frequency of nouns ending in -īx, -īcis compared to those ending in -ĭx, -ĭcis, and more specifically by the possibility of reinterpreting the word as a feminine agent noun derived from the verb no, nāre (“swim”) and the suffix -trīx (“-tress”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈna.triːks/, [ˈnät̪riːks̠] or IPA^(key): /ˈna.triks/, [ˈnät̪rɪks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈna.triks/, [ˈnäːt̪riks]

The fragment of Lucilius cited below (definition 2) requires both vowels to be short in order for the line to scan as a hexameter.[3] However, the 6th-century grammarian Priscian lists this word among deverbal nouns ending in -trīx with long ī, implying that by his time an analogically altered form with a long vowel in the second syllable was in use.[4]

natrī̆x f or m (genitive natrī̆cis); third declension

1. water snake
   • 106 BCE – 43 BCE, Cicero, Lucullus 120.4:

     Cur deus, omnia nostra causa cum faceret (sic enim vultis), tantam vim natricum viperarumque fecerit, cur mortifera tam multa <ac> perniciosa terra marique disperserit.

   • c. 4 BCE – 65 CE, Seneca the Younger, Dialogi 4.31.8.2:

     Ne viperas quidem et natrices et si qua morsu aut ictu nocent effligeremus, si in reliquum mansuefacere possemus aut efficere ne nobis aliisve periculo essent; ergo ne homini quidem nocebimus quia peccavit, sed ne peccet, nec umquam ad praeteritum sed ad futurum poena referetur; non enim irascitur sed cavet.

   • c. 61 CE – 65 CE, Lucan, Pharsalia 9.720:

     et natrix violator aquae, iaculique volucres

2. Metaphor of disputed meaning; perhaps denoting either a penis or a type of whip.[5][6]
   • 2nd century BC, Gaius Lucilius, Saturae 2.72:[7]

     si natibus natricem inpressit crassam et capitatam

     • 2014 translation by Robert Cowan

       if s/he thrusts a thick natrix with a head on it into/onto my buttocks

3. name of a plant
   • Pliny, Natural History 27.107.1:

     Natrix vocatur herba, cuius radix evulsa virus hirci redolet.

Attested as masculine only once, in Lucan (quoted above under definition 1).

Third-declension noun.

• Translingual: Natrix (taxonomic genus)
• → English: rinatrix
• → Italian: natrice
• → Spanish: natriz

• “natrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “natrix”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• natrix 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)
• natrix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.