Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Proboscis
/prəˈbɒsɪs/noun
A long flexible snout or feeding tube on an animal or insect.
The Greek roots
πρό
pró
before, in front
βόσκειν
bóskein
to feed, graze
Literally: “the thing for feeding out front”
The story of the word
προβοσκίς is a job description rather than a name: the instrument you graze with, held out ahead of you. Greek writers used it of the elephant's trunk long before entomologists borrowed it for the coiled drinking straw of a butterfly. βόσκειν also feeds botany, through βοτάνη, the fodder that grows in a pasture.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
botanyprologueprophet
In a sentence
The moth uncurled its proboscis and drank from the sugar water.