Orthorhyncus
or-tho-RINK-us
Genus
the straight-beaked one
Literally: straight beak
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ortho- | straight, right, correct | Greek (orth, -o) | combining form ortho- before consonant |
| rhync- | snout, beak, bill | Greek (rhynch, -o) | variant spelling without the 'h' at the junction; stem rhynch- |
| -us | masculine nominative singular ending | Latin / New Latin | gives the genus masculine grammatical gender |
A single compound Greek noun Latinized as a masculine second-declension noun (-us). The head element is rhynchos (beak/bill) modified by ortho- (straight/right), yielding 'straight-billed'. The name was applied to the Antillean crested hummingbird, referring to the straight bill (as opposed to curved bills common in many hummingbirds).
Pronunciation
- or-tho-RINK-us Antepenult stress: the penult vowel 'u' is short and followed by only one consonant (s), and the ending -us is a standard short penult, so stress falls on the antepenult syllable 'RINK'.
Other readings
Orthorhynchus is the more common spelling (with an 'h' retained in -rhynch-); Orthorhyncus drops one 'h', but the segmentation and meaning are identical.
The dictionary contains 'orth, -o' (Greek, straight) and 'rhynch, -o' (Greek, snout/beak), both confirmed via tool lookup. The spelling 'Orthorhyncus' (one 'h') is a variant of the more standard 'Orthorhynchus'; both are used in the literature for the Antillean crested hummingbird genus. Initial 'rh' in Greek loanwords: the 'h' is etymologically part of the root (Greek ῥύγχος, rhynchos) but is silent in English pronunciation; the cluster is rendered simply as 'r'. The genus Orthorhyncus Lacépède, 1799 is currently accepted as the monotypic genus of the Antillean crested hummingbird (Orthorhyncus cristatus).