phoca

See also: Phoca and phóca

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)

1. (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

• phocine
• Phocinae

Anagrams

• phaco, copha, chapo, phaco-, Pacoh, poach

Latin

Alternative forms

• phōcē

Etymology

Etymology tree

Pre-Greekbor.?

Ancient Greek φώκη (phṓkē)bor.?

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

1. 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

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
  • French: phoque m
    • → Polish: foka f
    • → Romanian: focă f
    • → Turkish: fok
• →? Italian: foca f
• → Hungarian: fóka
• →? Portuguese: foca f
• >? Spanish: foca f
  • → Tagalog: poka
  • → Tetelcingo Nahuatl: foca
• → 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.