Pipile
PIE-pih-lee
Genus
The chirper; the piping bird
Literally: A chirping or peeping creature
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| pipil- | chirp, peep | Latin (pipil, -o) | stem of the verb pipilāre, to chirp or peep |
| -e | feminine nominative singular ending | New Latin genus-name terminal vowel; grammatical gender feminine |
Pipile is a monomial genus name coined by Lesson (1835). It is a New Latin feminine noun formed directly from the Latin verb stem pipil- (pipilāre, to chirp or peep) with the terminal -e giving it a feminine nominative singular form. As a genus name it stands alone; no epithet is being analyzed. The name is entirely descriptive of the loud, piping calls characteristic of these cracid birds.
Pronunciation
- PIE-pih-lee Penult vowel i is short and followed by only one consonant l before the final vowel, so it is not heavy; stress therefore falls on the antepenult. The antepenult vowel i is followed by one consonant p then the vowel i, satisfying the long-antepenult rule (single consonant then a vowel whose first letter is i), giving long i = eye.
Commonly: PIP-ih-lee (short first vowel by analogy with the English word pip; widely heard among ornithologists)
Other readings
Pipi- (Latin pipi, -en = peeping, chirping) + -le as a diminutive suffix, yielding 'little chirper'; less likely because the dictionary favours the longer stem pipil- as the primary match
The terminal -e is a grammatical ending, not a dictionary root; it is standard New Latin practice for feminine genus names. Common ornithological pronunciation PIP-ih-lee treats the antepenult i as short; the rule-based pronunciation PIE-pih-lee treats it as long. Both are defensible. The genus Pipile Lesson, 1835 contains the piping-guans (family Cracidae) of Central and South America.