oestrus

oestrus
\ \ [17] Greek oistros had an extraordinarily wide range of meanings, from ‘madness, frenzy’ through ‘sting’ to ‘gadfly’, and including also ‘breeze’. If, as has been suggested, it is related to Latin īra ‘anger’ (source of English ire [13]), Lithuanian aistra ‘passion’, etc, ‘frenzy’ is presumably the primary sense, but in fact English originally adopted it (via Latin oestrus) as the genus name for a variety of horsefly or botfly. ‘Sting’ was taken up, in the sense ‘impetus, goad’, as a learned borrowing in the mid-19th century (‘They too were pricked by the oestrus of intellectual responsibility’, John Morley, On Compromise 1874), but oestrus was not used for ‘period of sexual receptiveness in female animals’ (based of course on the notion of sexual ‘frenzy’) until the end of the 19th century. The derived oestrogen dates from the 1920s.
\ \ Cf.⇒ IRE

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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  • oestrus — n. m. BIOL Phase du cycle oestral de la femme et des femelles des mammifères, correspondant à l ovulation et à la période où la fécondation est possible. ⇒OESTRUS, subst. masc. PHYSIOL. [Chez la femme et chez la femelle du mammifère] Phase du… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • OEstrus — [OE]s trus, n. [L., a gadfly; also, frenzy, fr. Gr. ? gadfly; hence, sting, fury, insane desire, frenzy.] 1. (Zo[ o]l.) A genus of gadflies. The species which deposits its larv[ae] in the nasal cavities of sheep is {[oe]strus ovis}. [1913… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Oestrus — Oestrus, die Schafbremse, s. Bremen, S. 376 …   Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon

  • oestrus — género de dípteros éstridos cuyas largas infestan a veces el hombre prodiciendo miiasis Diccionario ilustrado de Términos Médicos.. Alvaro Galiano. 2010 …   Diccionario médico

  • oestrus — (n.) see ESTRUS (Cf. estrus) …   Etymology dictionary

  • oestrus — (US estrus) ► NOUN ▪ a recurring period of sexual receptivity and fertility in many female mammals. DERIVATIVES oestrous adjective. ORIGIN Greek oistros gadfly or frenzy …   English terms dictionary

  • oestrus — [ē′strəs, es′trəs] n. Brit. var. of ESTRUS …   English World dictionary

  • oestrus — [17] Greek oistros had an extraordinarily wide range of meanings, from ‘madness, frenzy’ through ‘sting’ to ‘gadfly’, and including also ‘breeze’. If, as has been suggested, it is related to Latin īra ‘anger’ (source of English ire [13]),… …   The Hutchinson dictionary of word origins

  • oestrus — noun /ˈiːstɹəs/ a) A biting fly of the genus Oestrus; a botfly. , 2001: ‘It’s the supremely human act, freely to fuck, not because you are on heat, or in oestrus, like an animal, but to give and receive pleasure.’ David Lodge, Thinks... , Chinese …   Wiktionary

  • Oestrus — ruja statusas T sritis gyvūnų raida, augimas, ontogenezė, embriologija atitikmenys: lot. Estrus; Oestrus ryšiai: platesnis terminas – rujos ciklas …   Veterinarinės anatomijos, histologijos ir embriologijos terminai

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