Lorius
LOR-ee-us
Genus
The lory — a Latinized genus name for a group of brightly coloured parrots
Literally: The lory (a kind of parrot), Latinized
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lori- | a kind of parrot | Malayan (lori) | Malay vernacular name for lories/lorikeets; taken directly as the stem |
| -us | standard masculine nominative singular ending used to form Latinized genus names | Latin | Latin grammatical ending applied to the Malay stem to create a valid genus name |
Lorius is a single-word genus name. The Malay word lori ('a kind of parrot') has been given the Latin masculine nominative singular ending -us to create a formally Latinized genus name, following standard zoological nomenclatural practice (ICZN). There is no species epithet here; the name stands at genus rank alone. The genus Lorius Vigors, 1825 encompasses the lories of the family Psittacidae (tribe Loriini), native to the Australasian region.
Pronunciation
- LOR-ee-us Antepenult stress: the penult vowel 'i' is short and is followed by only one consonant (s), so the stress falls on the antepenult 'Lo-'. That antepenult vowel 'o' is long because it is followed by a single consonant 'r' and then the vowel 'i' (rule: a, e, o, or u + single consonant + vowel, first of the following vowels being i).
Other readings
A secondary, much less likely reading would segment the name as Latin lor- (lorum = 'a thong or lash') + -ius, yielding 'of the thong/lash' — but this is almost certainly not the intended derivation; the Malay lori reading is confirmed by the birds' common name 'lory'.
The suffix -us is not listed as a standalone entry in the dictionary; it is the standard Latin masculine nominative singular ending universally applied in zoological nomenclature and is treated here from general knowledge (confidence: high). The Malay root lori is confirmed in the dictionary (entry: 'lori, Malayan: a kind of parrot'), making the etymology transparent and unambiguous. Lorius Vigors, 1825 is the accepted genus for several lory species (e.g. Lorius lory, the black-capped lory) native to New Guinea and surrounding islands.