LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
noun · femininethird declension

īlex

īlex f (genitive īlicis)
Classical[ˈiː.ɫɛks]Ecclesiastical[ˈiː.leks]
Mille Verba core vocabulary

Meaning

  1. holm oak (Quercus ilex)

Latīnē defined in Latin in our graded readers

arbor dūra et dēnsa; folia eius semper viridia sunt.
īlex -icis f — in Mille Verba, Arborēs et Plantae
arbor dūra, quercuī similis
īlex -icis (f) — in Metamorphoses I, ch. 22

Declension

declension
formsingularplural
nominativeīlexīlicēs
genitiveīlicisīlicum
dativeīlicīīlicibus
accusativeīlicemīlicēs
ablativeīliceīlicibus
vocativeīlexīlicēs

īlex, ĭcis, f.,
I. a kind of oak, the holmoak or great scarlet oak (cf. quercus, aesculus, robur), Quercus ilex, Linn.; Plin. 16, 6, 8, § 19; 16, 8, 12, § 32; 16, 18, 30, § 73; Enn. ap. Macr. S. 6, 2 (Ann. v. 194 Vahl.); Verg. E. 7, 1; id. A. 12, 702; Hor. C. 3, 13, 14; Ov. M. 1, 112; 8, 237: arbor felix, Macr. S. 3, 20, 2 et saep.—Poet.: porcus ilice pastus, i. e. with acorns, Mart. 14, 70, 2.

Origins

Probably from a lost non-Indo-European substrate language. Many Romance descendants or cognates, such as Italian elce, start with a vowel that is not the regular outcome of Latin long ī, but instead of Latin long ē or short i. A phonetic value like this is attested also in Isidore, who by false etymology associates ilex with ēlectus. According to one hypothesis, such Romance forms descend from an Osco-Umbrian alternative form that started with *ēl-, from earlier *eil- (> classical Latin īl-). Hall 1939 finds this unlikely, and prefers explaining Italian elce by contamination from a descendant of aesculum.

Inherited
  • Catalanalzina
  • Frenchyeuse
  • Italianelce
  • Occitaneuse
  • Occitanausina
  • Portugueseazinha
  • Portugueseenzinha
  • Portugueseazinheira
  • Portugueseenzinheira
  • Sardinianilighe
Borrowings
  • EnglishIlex
  • Albanianilqe
  • Esperantoilekso
  • Idoilexo

Quick answers

What does īlex mean in Latin?
īlex, a noun, means “holm oak (Quercus ilex)”.
What is the genitive of īlex?
The genitive singular is īlicis. īlex is feminine, third declension.
How do you pronounce īlex?
In classical Latin, [ˈiː.ɫɛks]; in ecclesiastical (church) Latin, [ˈiː.leks].