fraxinus

From Proto-Italic *frāksinos, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰr̥Hǵ-s-inos, adjective of *bʰerHǵós (“birch”). Cognate with Sanskrit भूर्ज (bhūrjá, “Himalayan birch”) (Betula utilis), English birch, Russian берёза (berjóza).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈfraːk.sɪ.nʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈfrak.si.nus]

frāxinus f (genitive frāxinī); second declension

1. an ash tree
   • c. 77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 16.30:

     montes et valles diligit abies, robur, castaneae, tilia, ilex, cornus. aquosis montibus gaudent acer, fraxinus, sorbus, tilia, cerasus.

     Mountains and valleys are favoured by fir, oak, chestnut, linden, scarlet oak, dogwood. Wet mountains abound in maple, ash, service-tree, linden, [and] cherry.

2. an ashen spear or javelin

Second-declension noun.

• Frāsinus
• frāxineus
• frāxinētum

frāxinus (feminine frāxina, neuter frāxinum); first/second-declension adjective

1. of ash wood; ashen
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.677–678:

     […] certe si fraxinus esset, fulva colore foret […]

     surely if it were of ash, it would have a yellow color

First/second-declension adjective.

• AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 588: “il frassino” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “fraxĭnus”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 3: D–F, page 771

• “fraxinus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “fraxinus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• fraxinus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “fraxinus”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly