Lathamus
LATH-a-mus
Genus
Latham's [parrot] — a genus name honouring the English ornithologist John Latham (1740–1837)
Literally: Of Latham; (a Latinized form of the proper name Latham)
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Latham- | Surname of John Latham (1740–1837), the pioneering English ornithologist and author of A General Synopsis of Birds | English (proper name) (Latham) | Personal name Latinized by adding the standard masculine nominative ending -us; coined by René Lesson, 1830 |
| -us | Standard Latin masculine nominative singular ending, used to Latinize surnames | Latin | Gives the genus name its grammatical gender: masculine |
Lathamus is a mono-specific genus (containing only the Swift Parrot, Lathamus discolor). It is a Latinized proper noun: the surname Latham has the Latin nominative ending -us appended directly to the stem, yielding a masculine noun of the 2nd declension. When used in a binomial, the species epithet must agree with this masculine gender (or stand as a noun in apposition).
Pronunciation
- LATH-a-mus Three syllables (La-tha-mus). The penult 'tha' has a short vowel followed by a single consonant (m), making it a light syllable; stress therefore falls on the ANTEPENULT (third-to-last): LATH-.
Other readings
A purely etymological split lat- (Latin: broad) + ham- (Latin: hook) + -us has no ornithological support and is almost certainly wrong; the proper-name origin is universally accepted.
The root 'Latham' is not in the roots dictionary; the identification as a Latinized personal name is based on well-documented taxonomic history (Lesson, 1830) and is high-confidence. The single living species is Lathamus discolor, the Swift Parrot of southeastern Australia — a critically endangered bird. 'th' in scientific names is conventionally pronounced /θ/ (as in 'thin') in English, though in strict restored Latin it would be /t/. The dictionary's automatic segmentation suggested lat- (broad) + ham- (hook) + -us (mouse), but this produces no coherent meaning and should be disregarded.