frutex

Borrowed from Latin frutex.

frutex (plural frutexes or frutices)

1. (botany, archaic) A bush; a shrub

• “frutex”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Uncertain; proposed derivations include:

• From Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil, brew, sprout?”), via shortening of *frūto-, and then connected to Old English brēowan (“to brew”).^[1]
• From Proto-Indo-European *bʰruto-^[1] or *bʰrutós and then connected to Old High German brōz (“bud, scion, offshoot”), Middle High German briezen (“to bud, swell”) and Old Irish broth (“awn, hair”).^[2] Compare English breast, Proto-Celtic *brusū (“belly, abdomen, breast”) and Proto-Slavic *břȗxo (“belly”), all ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrews- (“to swell”).
• From a root common to Ancient Greek βρύω (brúō, “to swell”) and (perhaps) Proto-West Germanic *krūd (“plant, herb”).^[3]
• From Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewd-. Cognates include Old English brēotan (“to break”), Old Irish broth (“awn”) and maybe Lithuanian brùzgas (“bush, shrub”).

Compare Latin fruticare (“to sprout”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈfrʊ.tɛks]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈfruː.t̪eks]

frutex m (genitive fruticis); third declension

1. shrub, bush
2. trunk (of a tree)
3. (informal, derogatory) blockhead

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:homo stultus

Third-declension noun.

• fruticētum
• fruticō
• fruticōsus
• suffrutex

• → English: frutex
• → Italian: frutice
• → Portuguese: frútice
• → Spanish: frútice

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