natrix

Etymology
From, from. Cognate with 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬. According to a proposal of André Martinet, the /ks/ in the nominative singular developed from word-final *h₂s, and /ik/ subsequently spread from the nominative singular to other forms of the word by paradigmatic leveling; Schrijver 1991 rejects this hypothesis, but Rasmussen 1993 considers it plausible.

A pronunciation with a long vowel in the second syllable is attested by the time of Priscian (see Pronunciation below); this may have been caused by the much greater frequency of nouns ending in -īx, -īcis compared to those ending in -ĭx, -ĭcis, and more specifically by the possibility of reinterpreting the word as a feminine agent noun derived from the verb and the suffix.

Pronunciation


The fragment of Lucilius cited below (definition 2) requires both vowels to be short in order for the line to scan as a hexameter. However, the 6th-century grammarian Priscian lists this word among deverbal nouns ending in -trīx with long ī, implying that by his time an analogically altered form with a long vowel in the second syllable was in use.

Noun

 * 1) water snake

Usage notes
Attested as masculine only once, in Lucan (quoted above under definition 1).

Descendants

 * Translingual: