ichneumon

From Latin ichneumōn, from Ancient Greek ἰχνεύμων (ikhneúmōn, “tracker”), from ἴχνος (íkhnos, “track, footstep”).

• IPA^(key): /ɪkˈnjuːmən/

ichneumon (plural ichneumons)

1. The Egyptian mongoose, Herpestes ichneumon, found in Africa and southern Europe.

   Synonym: nems

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     when the Ichneumon is to grapple with the Crocodile, he walloweth his body in the mire, then lets the same drie and harden upon him […].

2. The ichneumon wasp.
   • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin 2011, p. 43:

     Ada's unique Lorelei Underwing had died, paralyzed by some ichneumon that had not been deceived by those clever prominences and fungoid smudges.

• ichneumoned
• ichneumonized
• ichneumonology

• ichnology
• ichnogram
• ichneumia

• IPA^(key): /ik.nø.mɔ̃/

• Audio

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ichneumon m (plural ichneumons)

1. ichneumon

• “ichneumon”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Ancient Greek ἰχνεύμων (ikhneúmōn, “tracker”), from ἴχνος (íkhnos, “track, footstep”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ikʰˈneu̯.moːn/, [ɪkʰˈnɛu̯moːn]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ikˈneu̯.mon/, [ikˈnɛːu̯mon]

ichneumōn m (genitive ichneumonis); third declension

1. Egyptian mongoose, Herpestes ichneumon
   • ...deinde internecivum bellum cum ichneumone.
     ...and in the next place she has given it war to the death with the ichneumon.

     Pliny the Elder, Natural History, VIII.35

2. ichneumon wasp, ichneumon fly
   • ...mustela et cornix, turtur et pyrallis, ichneumones vespae et phalangia aranei...
     ...the weasel and the crow, the turtle-dove and the pyrallis, ichneumon-flies and spiders...

     Pliny the Elder, Natural History, X.95

Third-declension noun.

• “ichneumon”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ichneumon in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette