bdellium

Borrowed from Latin bdellium, from Ancient Greek βδέλλιον (bdéllion), itself perhaps from Hebrew בְּדֹלַח (bdólakh), cognate with Akkadian 𒁉𒁺𒌨𒄷 (bidurḫu) or from Sanskrit भिदुर (bhidura, “something brittle, fragile, easily split or broken”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɛli.əm/
• (proscribed) IPA^(key): /b(ə)ˈdɛli.əm/

bdellium (countable and uncountable, plural bdelliums)

2. An aromatic gum-like balsam extracted from one of several species of tree in the genus Commiphora.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 2:10–12:

     And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

• African bdellium (from Commiphora africana)
• Indian bdellium (from Commiphora wightii)
• Sicilian bdellium (from Daucus carota subsp. hispanicus)

From Ancient Greek βδέλλιον (bdéllion), see above.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈbdɛl.li.ũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈbd̪ɛl.li.um]

bdellium n (genitive bdelliī or bdellī); second declension

1. bdellium
2. The plant itself.

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

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