Translation
species (in biology)
Word origin
From Latin species, an appearance or a kind, from specere ('to look at'). Linnaeus fixed it as the technical rank in biological classification, and that technical sense is the one Esperanto borrowed as specio - the everyday sense had already arrived separately as speco.
- Origin
- Latin
- Root
- species
- English cognates
- species, special, spectacle
Examples
, .
That bird belongs to a species that lives on only one island.
.
Many species of birds and plants live in the forest.
.
The species disappeared a hundred years ago.
This is a false friend, and it is the classic one. means species in the strict biological sense and nothing else: a rank in the classification of living things, below the genus, the level at which a wolf and a dog are argued about. If you want to say kind, sort or type in any ordinary sentence, the word is speco.
So ? is what kind of coffee, and ? asks which botanical species the plant belonged to. Ĉiaspeca means of all kinds; ĉiaspecia is not a word anybody wants. English speakers import the error because English species and kind feel like registers of one idea rather than two words, and because looks so much more like species that it seems the obvious choice. It is the wrong one nineteen times in twenty. More of this family in the chapter's article on false friends.
The rest of the biological vocabulary is regular: genro is the genus, the family, o a set of species, and subspecio a subspecies. And note that (special) belongs with in feel but with neither in grammar - it is a third root again, borrowed whole.
Where this fits
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specio: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "specio" (species (in biology)): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 38.