strix

From Latin strix, from Ancient Greek στρίξ (stríx, “screecher”).

strix (plural strixes or striges)

1. (mythology) A bird-like demon feeding on human flesh and blood.
   • 2017, Ronald Hutton, The Witch, Yale University Press 2018, p. 69:

     What was distinctive about the strix was that […] it resembled an owl, or (to a lesser extent) a bat, being a winged, clawed creature, which flew by night and had a hideous screeching cry.

Borrowed from Ancient Greek στρίξ (stríx, “screecher”), which also gave strī̆ga (“evil spirit, nightmare; vampire; witch”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /striːks/, [s̠t̪riːks̠] or IPA^(key): /striks/, [s̠t̪rɪks̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /striks/, [st̪riks]
• Note: on the evidence of Romance and the related term, the length of the vowel varied.

strī̆x f (genitive strī̆gis); third declension

1. The screech-owl, a bird of ill omen believed to suck the blood of young children.
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 6.139-140:

     est illīs strī̆gibus nōmen; sed nōminis huius
     causā, quod horrendum strīdere nocte solent.

     “With striges,” that is [the birds’] name; but the explanation of this name is that they are wont to screech – a horrible [omen!] – in the night.
     (“Strī̆gēs” relates to the Latin stridere, “to screech”.)

   1. (by extension) A female evil spirit, nocturnal apparition; a nightmare.

      Synonyms: volātica, malefica, venēfica, strī̆ga

Third-declension noun.

• strīga

• ⇒ Romanian: striga (“to call, shout”)
• ⇒ Sicilian: strìgula (“barn owl”)
• → English: strigine
• → Esperanto: strigo
• → Ido: strigo
• → Italian: strige
• → Portuguese: estrige
• → Spanish: estrige

Possibly from a pre-Roman substrate of Iberia such as Celtiberian, from Proto-Indo-European *streyg- (“to brush, strip, shear”) and cognate to Latin striga (“strip”).

strix f (genitive strigis); third declension

1. (Spain, hapax, dubious) A golden nugget.
   • Pliny, Natural History 33.62:

     Hispānia strigēs vocat aurī parvolās māssās.

Third-declension noun.

• “strix” on page 2016 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)
• Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911), “strix”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German)

• “strix”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “strix”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• strix in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette