tamarix

See also: Tamarix

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin tamarix. Doublet of tamarisk.

Noun

tamarix (plural tamarixes)

tamarisk
- 1912 July, Wisconsin Horticulture, volume 2, number 11, Wisconsin State Horticultural Society, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 5:
  This tamarix combines delightfully when in bloom with the Russian olive. There is an artistic group nearby, where a crabtree and a Russian olive stand on a hilltop with blue sky for a background, behind a tamarix in full bloom of delicate pink and feathery gray green.
- 1913, Marcel E. Hardy, An Introduction to Plant Geography (Oxford geographies), Clarendon Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 177:
  The high plateau of Iran, screened by the higher rims of Elburz and Khorassan from the north winds, is swept by dry icy gales and exposed to great extremes of temperature. There the high treeless steppe of short grass surrounds arid depressions or salt-pans with the usual carpet of low, fleshy salt-bushes and heaths of tamarixes.
- 1941, Bulletin - Agricultural Experiment Station, volume 284, New Mexico State University, →OCLC, page 24:
  The tamarixes are not only valuable for their fine-textured foliage but they also flower abundantly in colors of pink or lavender.

Latin

Alternative forms

thamarīx

Etymology

Unknown, but considered a loan word. Often connected to the Celtic river Tamaris (“the river Tambre”) and the tribe Tamaricī that dwelt there.

Since the fruits of various Tamarix species have been used extensively to avail soul and body as manna and كَزْمَازَج (kazmāzaj) by the Eastern peoples and – speaking of the Iberian which coast has been colonized by speakers of Semitic languages – Afroasiatics held a considerable part of the Mediterranean coastlines where the tamarisk could be encountered, it may also be a derivation of a cognate of Arabic ثَمَر (ṯamar, “fruits”), however not from Phoenician in so far as the corresponding first consonant would be 𐤔 (š), but from Aramaic where it is ת (t) or from a less known relative.

However it is apt to connect the Ancient Greek designation for the tamarisk, μυρίκη (muríkē). It seemingly contains the same suffix while only the Latin begins with a separable formans, perhaps the Late Egyptian definite article tꜣ (/⁠tə⁠/, “the”), or Berber where ta- forms feminine singulatives. Compare myrīcē.

Pronunciation

(Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈta.ma.riːks/, [ˈt̪ämäriːks̠]
(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈta.ma.riks/, [ˈt̪äːmäriks]

Noun

tamarīx f (genitive tamarīcis); third declension

tamarisk

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	tamarīx	tamarīcēs
genitive	tamarīcis	tamarīcum
dative	tamarīcī	tamarīcibus
accusative	tamarīcem	tamarīcēs
ablative	tamarīce	tamarīcibus
vocative	tamarīx	tamarīcēs

Descendants

Catalan: tamariu
Italian: tamerice
Translingual: Tamarix
Spanish: tamariz

References

“tamarix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Ernout, Alfred, Meillet, Antoine (1985) “tamarix”, in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots‎^[1] (in French), 4th edition, with additions and corrections of Jacques André, Paris: Klincksieck, published 2001, page 676a
Schuchardt, Hugo (1909) “Zur Wortgeschichte: 1. Lat. buda; tamarix; mlat. tagantes”, in Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie‎^[2] (in German), volume 33, Halle: Max Niemeyer, page 351
Schuchardt, Hugo (1918) Die romanischen Lehnwörter im Berberischen (Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften; 188, IV^th treatise)‎^[3] (in German), Wien: In Kommission bei Alfred Hölder, page 16

Romanian

Noun

tamarix m (uncountable)

Alternative form of tamariscă

Declension

singular only	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	tamarix	tamarixul
genitive-dative	tamarix	tamarixului
vocative	tamarixule