noctula

From noctua (“night-owl”) +‎ -ula (diminutive suffix).

Sense 2 borrowed from Italian nottola and sense 3 from French noctule, both ultimately from sense 1 of the Latin word. Among the earliest examples of its scientific usage is the species name Nyctalus noctula, coined in 1774 by Schreber.

• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈnok.tu.la/, [ˈnɔkt̪ulä]

noctula f (genitive noctulae); first declension

1. (Late Latin, hapax) presumably same sense as noctua
   • ca. 5th–6th c. CE, Mustio, Gynaecia, section LXXXIII:

     iubebant nutrientibus ut ubera omnium animalium manducarent vespertilionum etiam conbustorum vel noctule cineres cum vino bibere dabant vel cum aqua solutum[1]

     They would tell nursing women to eat various animals' udders or even have them drink water or wine with the ashes of burnt bats, or of a night-owl, stirred into it...

2. (Medieval Latin) latinisation of the Italian nottola (“name for various bats and birds”)
   • Ca. 1220's, Sermon by Saint Anthony of Padua :

     Ululae sunt aves nocturnales, dictae ab ululatione vocis quam efferunt, quas vulgo cavones vel noctulas dicunt.[2]

     Screech-owls are nocturnal birds named after the screeching they emit; in the vernacular they are called cavones or noctulas.

   • 1338, Deed of sale in Vicovaro, Italy :

     et medietatem castellarii seu casalis quod dicitur Gripta de Noctulis[3]

     ...and half of the estate known as Gripta de Noctulis [Grotta di Nottole]...

3. (New Latin, biology) a noctule
   • 1804, Johannes Hermann, Observationes zoologicae quibus novae complures aliaeque animalium species describuntur et illustrantur, page 172:

     Vespertilionem noctulam vivam clamosamque, etiam praetereuntium calceis navali pice forte imbutam, tamen avide petiit, diverberatamque diu rostro tandem deglutiit.

     It eagerly chased down a vespertilio noctula, even though the latter was quite stained with pitch from the boots of passers-by, and after battering it about for a considerable time with its beak, swallowed it alive and screaming.

   • 1830, Johannes Müller, De glandularum secernentium structura penitiori earumque prima formatione in homine atque animalibus, page 40:

     Secretum in Vespertilione murino et V. noctula foetidum atque adiposum auctore Ill. Tiedemann alis lubricandis inservit.

     Per Tiedemann, in the species Vespertilio murinus and Vespertilio noctula, a foul greasy secretion is used to lubricate the wings.

First-declension noun.

• Italian: nottola (see there for further descendants)
• Old French: nuitre
• Venetian: nòtoła

Forms showing a forward shift in stress, as if *noctulla:

• Franco-Provençal: itoulă, niétôla
• Old Occitan: nuchola
  • Occitan: nichola, nechola, nuechora

• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “nŏctua”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volumes 7: N–Pas, page 163