scirpus

• sirpus (rare)

Uncertain. Possibly from a root similar to Proto-Indo-European *(s)kerbʰ- (“to turn (around), wind”) (compare corbis (“basket”), Ancient Greek κάρφος (kárphos, “stalk, straw”), and descendants of Proto-Balto-Slavic *karbás and Proto-West Germanic *korb (“basket”)), but an inherited origin for all of these is controversial. Even if scirp- is indeed related to this set, the phonetics (root vowel i, coda p) are incongruent with inheritance from PIE and so might indicate a wanderwort or substrate language source.

The figurative sense derives from the plaiting of rushes to make intricate patterns.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈskir.pus/, [ˈs̠kɪrpʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈʃir.pus/, [ˈʃirpus]

scirpus m (genitive scirpī); second declension

1. a rush, bulrush

   Synonym: iuncus

2. (figuratively) riddle, enigma

Second-declension noun.

• French: scirpe
• Italian: scirpo
• Sicilian: scirpu
• Translingual: Scirpus

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