noctule

Borrowed from French noctule, a scientific latinisation of the Italian nottola (refers to various birds or bats), inherited from an obscure Late Latin noctula, diminutive of Classical Latin noctua (“night-owl”), ultimately from Latin nox (“night”), from Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts. Per the OED, first attested in English in 1771.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈnɒktjuːl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈnɑkt͡ʃul/

noctule (plural noctules)

1. A bat, of the genus Nyctalus, that lives in tree hollows.

• Azores noctule
• birdlike noctule
• Chinese noctule
• common noctule
• greater noctule bat
• Japanese noctule
• lesser noctule
• mountain noctule

• →? Catalan: nòctul
• → Spanish: nóctulo

• Lecount

Coined by Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton in 1760 (see quote below) as a latinisation of the Italian nottola (name for various bats and birds).

• IPA^(key): /nɔk.tyl/

• Audio

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noctule f (plural noctules)

1. noctule
   • 1760, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton, Histoire Naturelle, volume VIII:

     La troisième espèce, que nous appellerons la noctule, du mot italien nottola...

     The third species, which we shall call the noctule, from the Italian word nottola...

• → English: noctule
  • →? Catalan: nòctul
  • → Spanish: nóctulo
• → New Latin: noctula

• “noctule”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.