faex

From Latin faex.

faex (plural faeces)

1. (sciences, uncommon) singular of faeces
   • 1924, Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases, Tropical Diseases Bulletin, volume 21, pages 135, 243:

     In some cases he has identified the plant parasites also in the intestine of insects (Hemiptera and Muscidae) living on the plants and presumably distributing infection either by bite or by faex. […] It gives a concise and coherent general account of the biology, the Protozoa, group by group, as exemplified by representative species and deals in well digested detail, and in their taxonomic setting, with the species found in the intestine and faex and blood and tissues of man

   • 1944, Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, Journal, volume 26, page 201:

     The colour of the faeces presumably depends on that of the sand on which the worm happens to be feeding. It would be difficult to explain the following laboratory observation in any other way. A worm, which was setting up a new head shaft, produced a cylinder consisting of 4 cm. of yellow matter followed by 3 cm. of black, the two separated by a sharp boundary though both forming parts of the same faex.

   • 1969, Robert Silverberg, Up the Line, Ballantine Books:

     I, the last of the Ducases, I, the strider across millennia, I, the brilliant Courier in the style of Metaxes, I … I, to these veteran Couriers here, was simply an upright mass of perambulating dreck. A faex that walks like a man. Which is the singular of faeces. Which is to say, a shit.

   • 1996, Canadian Journal of Zoology, volume 74, pages 1111, 1115, 1116:

     When > 120 sand eel otoliths were present in a faex, a random subsample of at least 25 % of the total number was measured. […] Table 3. Mean numbers of fish otoliths and cephalopod beaks per faex containing prey (n) for each geographical area (I. Inverness Firth; D. Dornoch Firth; B. Beauly Firth) in summer and winter for those prey species contributing > 3.5 % to the overall diet composition, by mass. […] Table 4. Results of one-way Kruskal – Wallis ANOVAs (df = 3) to test for between-year differences in summer diet composition in 1989 – 1992, measured by numbers of otoliths or beaks per faex (see the text for details).

• Faxe, e-fax

• fēx

Unknown;[1] possibly borrowed from a substrate language.[2]

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /fae̯ks/, [fäe̯ks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /feks/, [fɛks]

faex f (genitive faecis); third declension

1. (of liquids) sediment, dregs
2. salt of tartar
3. brine used for pickling
4. rouge as makeup
5. (figuratively) scum; the dregs of humanity
6. (Medieval Latin, brewing) grout (the mixture of malts and other ingredients that make up the grain bill and resulting mash in the brewing process of beer)

Third-declension noun.

• dēfaecō
• faecula

• “faex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “faex”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• faex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the dregs of the people: faex populi, plebis, civitatis
    
• Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976) “faex”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill, page 420/2

From Proto-Tai *mwajꟲ (“tree; wood”). Cognate with Thai ไม้ (máai), Northern Thai ᨾᩱ᩶, Lao ໄມ້ (mai), Lü ᦺᦙᧉ (may²), Tai Dam ꪼꪣ꫁, Shan မႆႉ (mâ̰i), Ahom 𑜉𑜩 (may), Nong Zhuang maex, Saek ไม.

• (Standard Zhuang) IPA^(key): /fai˦˨/
• Tone numbers: fae⁴
• Hyphenation: faex

faex (Sawndip forms 𣔉 or 㭑 or 𭩼 or 柫 or 梶 or 枇 or 𣑶 or 棑 or 𬃮 or 費 or 棐 or 𣚡, 1957–1982 spelling fəiч)

1. tree
2. wood; lumber
3. rod; stick
4. casket; coffin