pituita

English

Etymology

From Latin pītuīta (“mucus, phlegm”). Doublet of pip.

Pronunciation
  • (UK) IPA(key): /pɪˈtjuːɪtə/

Noun

pituita (uncountable)

  1. (medicine, now only historical) Phlegm; mucus.
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
      , Book I (New York 2001 edition), p.148:
      Pituita, or phlegm, is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder part of the chylus […]

Latin

Etymology

Unknown.[1] Has been related to *peyH- (“fat”) but not convincing.

Noun

pītuīta f (genitive pītuītae); first declension

  1. mucus, phlegm
  2. rheum, head cold

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative pītuīta pītuītae
Genitive pītuītae pītuītārum
Dative pītuītae pītuītīs
Accusative pītuītam pītuītās
Ablative pītuītā pītuītīs
Vocative pītuīta pītuītae

Descendants
  • ⇒ Medieval Latin: pīpīta
    • Italo-Romance:
      • Italian: pipita
      • Neapolitan: pepita, ⇒ pepitula
      • Sicilian: pipita, ⇒ pipìtula
    • North-Italian:
      • Friulian: pivida
    • Gallo-Italic:
      • Emilian: puìda, pavìa, piuvida, puvida
      • Ligurian: péja
      • Lombard: puìda, puvida, piida, pivida
      • Piedmontese: pëvìa, puvìa, poìa, poìja, puìa
      • Romagnol: puvida, povida
    • Ibero-Romance:
    • ⇒ Vulgar Latin: *pippīta
      • Inherited:
      • Borrowed:
        • → Middle Dutch: pippe, pip
        • → Middle Low German: pip
        • → Old High German: pfipfiz, pfiffiz, (Central German) pipz, *pippiz
          • Middle High German: phiphiz, pippis
            • Alemannic German: Pfiffi
            • German: Pips, (obsolete) Pfipfs

References
  1. De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 468

Further reading
  • AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 1141: “la pipita” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it
  • “pituita”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “pituita”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • pituita in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • pituita in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
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