Spatula
SPAT-yoo-luh
Genus
The spatula (spoon-billed) duck — named for the broad, flat, spoon-shaped bill characteristic of shoveler ducks and their allies
Literally: A little flat blade; a little spoon
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| spatul- | A little blade; a spoon | Latin (spatul, =a) | Itself a diminutive of spatha (broad flat blade), from Greek spath, =a (a broad sword / broad flat blade) |
| -a | Little (diminutive feminine ending) | Latin (-ul, =a) | The diminutive suffix -ula is embedded in the Latin word spatula; -a is the feminine nominative singular termination |
Spatula is a standalone Latin feminine noun (nominative singular) used directly as a genus name. It is the ordinary Latin word for a small flat blade or spoon, itself formed from spatha (broad flat blade, borrowed from Greek spathē) plus the Latin diminutive suffix -ula. The taxonomist Boie (1822) borrowed the complete Latin word wholesale; no further compounding was performed. As a genus name it is treated as a Latin feminine noun of the first declension.
Pronunciation
- SPAT-yoo-luh Three syllables (Spat-u-la). The penult vowel u is short and followed by only one consonant l, and the final syllable is -a (not a diphthong or a long-vowel ending), so the antepenult SPAT- receives stress.
Commonly: Identical to scientific pronunciation — spatula passed unchanged into everyday English, so both agree: SPAT-yoo-luh
Other readings
One could segment spat- + -ula independently, reading spat- from Greek spath- (broad sword) directly plus Latin -ula (little), arriving at the same meaning via a slightly different morphological route; the dictionary entry spatul, =a makes clear the whole stem is a single Latin lexical item.
The dictionary entry spatul, =a (Latin, id 6215) confirms the complete word spatula as a single lexical root meaning a little blade; a spoon. The broader etymological ancestor spath, =a (Greek, id 6212) meaning a broad sword underlies spatha, from which the Latin diminutive spatula was formed, but the taxonomic name draws directly on the Latin word. The diminutive suffix -ul, =a (Latin, id 7072) meaning little is structurally embedded within spatula and is confirmed separately in the dictionary. Spatula (Boie, 1822) currently encompasses the shovelers and related dabbling ducks; its validity as distinct from Anas has fluctuated across classifications.