Meleagris
meh-LEE-ag-ris
Genus
The turkey genus, named after the ancient Greek word for guinea fowl, which itself derives from the mythological hero Meleager
Literally: Guinea fowl (the Greek word for the bird)
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meleagris | a guinea fowl | Greek (meleagri, =s) | The Greek word μελεαγρίς (meleagris) is a standalone lexical entry, not a compound of separable roots. It derives from the proper name Μελέαγρος (Meleager), a hero of Greek mythology. According to the myth, the sisters of Meleager wept so bitterly after his death that the gods transformed them into guinea fowls (μελεαγρίδες, meleagrides), giving the bird its name. The -is ending is the Latinized nominative singular of the Greek third-declension form. |
Meleagris is a single-word genus name, a Greek third-declension noun (stem meleagrid-) adopted directly into Latin. It stands alone with no epithet here. Linnaeus applied it to the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) in 1758, apparently conflating or deliberately likening the American turkey to the guinea fowl, which classical authors had called meleagris. Grammatically, the name is feminine in Latin (as a third-declension -is noun of Greek origin), so adjectival species epithets must agree in the feminine.
Pronunciation
- meh-LEE-ag-ris Four syllables: me-le-ag-ris. The penult vowel (a in -ag-) is short and is followed by the consonant cluster -gr-, but g is a mute and r is a liquid, making this the mute-plus-liquid exception; the penult therefore does NOT count as heavy. Stress falls on the ANTEPENULT (-le-). That antepenult vowel (e) is followed directly by another vowel (a), making it long, so it is pronounced 'ee'.
Commonly: mel-ee-AY-gris (sometimes heard in common English usage, incorrectly treating -ea- as a diphthong)
Other readings
A superficial segmentation into mel- (honey / cheek / song) + agri (field) + -s is grammatically possible but etymologically incorrect; the dictionary confirms meleagris as an indivisible inherited word derived from the proper name Meleager, not a compound.
The dictionary (entry: meleagri, =s, Greek) confirms that meleagris is a whole inherited word meaning 'a guinea fowl,' not a productive compound. The mythological backstory: Meleager (Μελέαγρος) was the hero of the Calydonian Boar Hunt. After his death, his grieving sisters (the Meleagrides) were transformed into guinea fowls; the Greeks then used meleagris as the ordinary word for that bird. Linnaeus placed the American turkey in this genus in 1758 (Systema Naturae, 10th ed.), drawing a parallel between the turkey and the guinea fowl, which European naturalists had initially confused with New World birds. The genus is feminine; species epithets must be feminine (e.g., gallopavo is treated as a noun in apposition). The dictionary does not contain a separate entry for the proper name Meleager; the mythological connection is from general classical knowledge (confidence: high).