ossifrage

[prettygoodword]

By popular demand, this week's theme is O.


ossifrage (OS-uh-frij) - n., the lammergeier or bearded vulture; (arch.) the osprey.


The name comes from Latin ossifraga, vulture, feminine of ossifragus, bone-breaker, from os, bone + frangere, to break. The Romans used this for the lammergeier (lit. "lamb-vulture" in German), a large Old World vulture that swallows and digests bones and was believed to break them by dropping them from aloft to get at the marrow. For unknown reasons, in France and England, the word was initially transferred to the osprey, possibly because of the sound, but this is now obsolete usage. So which is it that the King James Bible means in Lev 11:13 and Deu 14:12, in the list of non-kosher birds? -- probably the vulture.

---L.

Comments

[spacedlaw.livejournal.com]

Ossifrage sounds like a plant name. Something fragile and incredibly robust that would grow by the sea.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

I think of it as something small and grayish growing from between rocks in alpine areas.

---L.