Talk:Cantharides

RFV discussion: October 2019–March 2020
Defined as a genus name. In form it is the same as the nominative plural of Latin cantharis. Genus names are singular (unlike supergeneric names, which are always plural in form). I can't find any species name formed from it. The single cite is ambiguous as to precise meaning and the capitalization therein is quite likely attributable to the orthographic conventions around the time of publication, 1603. Much of the use of the term could be interpreted as the plural of English cantharis, following the Latin model. Some of the other use seems to refer to a pharmaceutical material derived from insects of genus Cantharis, eg "effect of cantharides injections", "tincture of cantharides". One can find instances of cantharide as a noun. DCDuring (talk) 00:33, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Does it even make sense to use the word "genus" for something used before the 18th century? DTLHS (talk) 01:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * True. The single cite couldn't support the definition.
 * BTW, I found one taxonomic database that had an entry for the genus, but it didn't have any species, so I am suspicious of even that mention. Arguably mentions of species binomials would have been uses of the component terms. DCDuring (talk) 01:18, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * In the text by Montaigne the term is clearly plural. In French: Les cantharides ont en elles quelque partie qui sert contre leur poison de contrepoison. Also in the Florio translation the term serves grammatically as a plural. Following the link on organismnames.com to the Encyclopedia of Life leads to a page that does not contain the term Cantharides, but several occurrences of Cantharide in a French common name (', '). So I think what we have here is the plural of a common name cantharide, probably borrowed from French. --Lambiam 04:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I think what we may have here is at least two, if not three terms:
 * The French plural of their term for cantharid, referring to a beetle in the family . Before the endings of taxonomic names were standardized, some English entomologists imitated the French usage, since several important early coleopterists were French. I vaguely remember something about -ides being an actual translingual family-name ending based on French usage, which was superseded by -idae.
 * A substance obtained from beetles which at one time was widely used medicinally as an irritant/stimulant, as well as being considered an aphrodisiac (also known as Spanish fly)
 * There may be some alternate spelling of the generic name - it wouldn't surprise me if the French used "cantharides" to refer specifically to beetles in that genus as well, and some early English writers might have followed that usage.
 * Chuck Entz (talk) 06:33, 21 October 2019 (UTC)


 * RFV-deleted. Whatever we have here, a genus is not part of it. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 22:40, 28 March 2020 (UTC)