Melipotes
mel-ih-POH-teez
Genus
honey drinker (one who drinks honey)
Literally: honey drinker
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| meli- | honey | Greek (meli, mel) | Greek combining form of méli (μέλι); the stem meli- is used before a consonant |
| -po- | to drink | Greek (po, pin) | from Greek root *po- / pin- (πίνω, aorist ἔπιον); the combining stem po- appears in compounds meaning 'drinker of' |
| -tes | agent suffix: one who does (the action) | Greek | Greek masculine agent noun suffix -τής (-tēs), regularly used to form nouns meaning 'one who [verb]s'; nominative singular |
Melipotes is a Greek compound masculine noun used as a genus name. It is formed from meli- (honey) + the verbal root po- (drink) + the agent suffix -tes, yielding 'one who drinks honey'. The construction is a standard Greek bahuvrihi-style agent compound: [object] + [verb root] + [agent suffix]. As a genus name it stands alone (monomial), treated as a Latin masculine noun in apposition.
Pronunciation
- mel-ih-POH-teez Antepenult rule: the penult vowel 'o' is long (it is the root vowel of a combining form followed by a single consonant 't' and then the vowel 'e'), so one might expect penult stress; however by strict classical scansion the penult is -po- (short o) followed by only one consonant before the final syllable -tes (= 'teez', since -es = 'ease'). With a short penult vowel followed by a single consonant, stress falls on the antepenult: MEL-ih-poh-teez is the classical reading. In common ornithological usage the stress often falls on the penult: mel-ih-POH-teez. The penult form is given here as the standard.
Commonly: MEL-ih-poh-teez (classical antepenult stress)
Other readings
meli- + -potes: if -potes is read as a single combining form meaning 'drinker', derived from Greek potēs (πότης, drinker, tippler), the segmentation is effectively the same but treats potes as a single lexical unit rather than po- + -tes. Either reading yields the identical meaning.
Melipotes is a bird genus (family Meliphagidae, honeyeaters) described by Salvadori in 1876, native to New Guinea. The name perfectly describes the honeyeater lifestyle. The root po- / pin- (to drink) is found in the dictionary; the agent suffix -tes is a standard Greek formative also confirmed in the dictionary. The Greek word πότης (potēs) meaning 'drinker' is itself a lexicalized agent noun from the same root, so -potes can be treated as a single unit meaning 'drinker'; both segmentations are linguistically valid. mel / meli is confirmed in the dictionary as Greek for honey (also entering Latin as mel, melis).