Melocichla
mel-oh-KICK-luh
Genus
the singing thrush — a notably vocal, thrush-like bird
Literally: song-thrush
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| melo- | a song (also: a limb; an apple) | Greek (mel, -o) | combining form of mélos; 'song' is the ornithologically appropriate sense |
| -cichla | a thrush | Greek (cichl, =a) | head noun; terminal -a is feminine nominative singular, setting the grammatical gender of the genus |
A purely Greek compound noun. The combining form melo- (song) is joined directly to the head noun cichla (thrush) without an additional connecting vowel, as the stem already ends in -o-. The genus is treated as a feminine Latin-form noun (nominative singular -a). Any adjectival species epithet must agree in the feminine gender.
Pronunciation
- mel-oh-KICK-luh Penult rule 5: the penult vowel i is short but is followed by two consonants (ch = k, then l), so the penult is stressed.
Commonly: MEL-oh-kick-luh (antepenult stress is common among English-speaking ornithologists, but the classical rule gives penult stress)
Other readings
melo- could theoretically derive from mel=a (the cheeks) rather than mel-o (song), giving 'cheek-thrush', but the ornithological context strongly favours 'song'.
Both roots are confirmed in the dictionary: mel,-o (Greek, 'a song; a limb; an apple') and cichl,=a (Greek, 'a thrush'). Melocichla mentalis (Moustached Grass-Warbler) is the type species; the genus is now placed in family Cettiidae. The ch in cichla represents Greek kh (χ) and is pronounced as a hard k, not as English 'ch'.