Florisuga
flor-ih-SOO-guh
Genus
the one that sucks flowers; a flower-sucker
Literally: flower-sucker
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flori- | a flower | Latin (flor, =a, -i) | combining form flori-, built on the stem of flos, floris; confirmed in dictionary as 'flor, =a, -i' |
| -suga | suck | Latin (sug) | agent noun built on sug- (from sugere, 'to suck'); the feminine ending -a gives the genus name its grammatical gender and completes the agent-noun pattern ('she who sucks') |
Florisuga is a single compound Latin noun: flori- (genitive-style combining form of flos, 'flower') + suga (agent noun from sugere, 'to suck'), with the feminine noun ending -a. Bonaparte coined it in 1850 for a hummingbird genus (family Trochilidae). As a genus name it stands alone; any species epithet placed under it must agree grammatically with its feminine gender (e.g. Florisuga mellivora, where mellivora is also feminine). The compound is a straightforward Latin descriptive noun meaning 'flower-sucker', perfectly capturing the nectar-feeding habit of hummingbirds.
Pronunciation
- flor-ih-SOO-guh Penult rule: the penult vowel is u followed by a single consonant (g); the rules state that 'most penults whose vowel is u' are stressed on the penult. Stress therefore falls on 'su-'.
Other readings
The segment -lori- (Malayan lori, 'a kind of parrot') is physically present in the string but is etymologically irrelevant; Bonaparte's intent is unambiguously Latin flori- + suga.
flo- ('blow', Latin) + ri- + suga is theoretically parseable but semantically weak and almost certainly wrong.
Both roots (flor, -i and sug) are confirmed in the dictionary. Florisuga was erected by Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1850; the type species is Florisuga mellivora (white-necked jacobin). No author or year was provided with the query; none was stripped. The genus name is grammatically feminine; species epithets must match (e.g. -a adjective endings).