mergus

From mergō (“dive, plunge”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈmɛr.ɡʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈmɛr.ɡus]

mergus m (genitive mergī); second declension

1. diver (loon), a kind of waterfowl
   • c. 37 BCE – 30 BCE, Virgil, Georgics 1.359–364:

     Iam sibi tum a curvis male temperat unda carinis,
     Cum medio celeres revolant ex aequore mergi
     Clamoremque ferunt ad litora, cumque marinae
     in sicco ludunt fulicae, notasque paludes
     Deserit atque altam supra volat ardea nubem.

     See the billowing waves not spare the curved-keeled boats, as quick loons fly back from the deep and let resound their cry towards the shore, as the sea coot solaces on dry land and herons leave the ponds they know so well and take to the heights, towering over the clouds.

2. vine-layer

Classical Latin applied the term mergus to the diver (loon), but modern taxonomic Latin applies this term to the merganser, and calls the diver gāvia.

Second-declension noun.

• mergulus

• mergō

• gāvia

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