proboscis

English

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proboscis

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Latin proboscis, from Ancient Greek προβοσκίς (proboskís, “elephant's trunk”) literally "means for taking food," from προ- (pro-, “before”) +‎ βόσκω (bóskō, “to nourish, feed”), from the Proto-Indo-European root *gʷeh₃- from which also comes βοτάνη (botánē, “grass, fodder”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɹə(ʊ)ˈbɒs(k)ɪs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

proboscis (plural proboscises or proboscides or probosces)

1. (anatomy) An elongated tube from the head or connected to the mouth, of an animal.
   • 2025 June 25, Elle Hunt, “From Chimpanzini Bananini to Ballerina Cappuccina: how gen alpha went wild for Italian brain rot animals”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of the site Know Your Meme, namechecks Brr Brr Patapim, “a proboscis monkey that is also a tree”, as one who made it to YouTube.

   1. (entomology, malacology) The tubular feeding and sucking organ of certain invertebrates like insects, worms and molluscs.
      • 2012, Brian Wiegmann, The Evolutionary Biology of Flies‎, page 225:

        Unlike the proboscides of Lower brachyceran lineages, which are continuous with the head capsule and tend to dangle (Matsuda 1965), the proboscides of most cyclorrhaphan species are suspended by a membranous region and divided into three functional parts: the basiproboscis (rostrum), medioproboscis (haustellum), and distiproboscis (labellum), each of which is defined by internal muscles but also shares muscles with the other regions (Graham-Smith 1930; Lall and Davies 1971).

   2. The trunk of an elephant.
2. (informal, mildly humorous) A large or lengthy human nose.

Usage notes

• The learned plural proboscides is prevalent in biological literature. Otherwise the plural proboscises tends to pair with the pronunciation in /-skɪs/, while the plural probosces tends to pair with the pronunciation in /-sɪs/.

Derived terms

• proboscis monkey
• proboscis worm

Translations

elongated tube

Arabic: خُرْطُوم m (ḵurṭūm) Armenian: կնճիթ (hy) (knčitʻ) Bulgarian: хобот (bg) m (hobot) Catalan: probòscide f Chinese: Mandarin: 長鼻 / 长鼻 (zh) (chángbí), 吻 (zh) (wěn), 象鼻 (zh) (xiàngbí) (of an elephant) Czech: sosák (cs) m Dutch: slurf (nl) Esperanto: rostro Finnish: imukärsä (fi), kärsä (fi) (of an elephant) French: trompe (fr) f, proboscide (fr) f German: Rüssel (de) m Hebrew: חֵדֶק (he) m (ḥédeq) Hungarian: (of mammals) ormány (hu), (of insects) pödörnyelv Ido: rostro (io) Irish: próboscas m Italian: proboscide (it) f Japanese: 吻 (ja) (ふん, fun) Norwegian: Bokmål: snabel m Nynorsk: snabel m Occitan: proboscide f Ottoman Turkish: خرطوم (hortum) Polish: ssawka f Portuguese: probóscide (pt) f, probóscida f Romanian: proboscidă (ro) f Russian: хобото́к (ru) m (xobotók), хо́бот (ru) m (xóbot) (of an elephant) Slovak: cuciak m Spanish: probóscide (es) f Swedish: snabel (sv) c Ukrainian: хобото́к m (xobotók) Volapük: probod (vo), sugaprobod Welsh: trwnc (cy) m (of elephant), sugnydd m (of insects)

slang: a nose — see schnozzle

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek προβοσκίς (proboskís).

Noun

proboscis f (genitive proboscidis); third declension

1. proboscis
2. snout
3. trunk of an elephant

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	proboscis	proboscidēs
genitive	proboscidis	proboscidum
dative	proboscidī	proboscidibus
accusative	proboscidem	proboscidēs
ablative	proboscide	proboscidibus
vocative	proboscis	proboscidēs

Descendants

• → English: proboscis
• Italian: proboscide
• Portuguese: probóscide
• Spanish: probóscide