bdellium

Borrowed from Latin bdellium, from Ancient Greek βδέλλιον (bdéllion), itself perhaps from Hebrew בְּדֹלַח‎ (bdólakh), cognate with Akkadian 𒁉𒁺𒌨𒄷 (bidurḫu) or from Sanskrit भिदुर (bhidura, “something brittle, fragile, easily split or broken”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɛl.iˌʌm/
• IPA^(key): /ˈdɛliəm/
• IPA^(key): /ˈb(ə)dɛliəm/ (nonstandard)

bdellium (countable and uncountable, plural bdelliums)

1. Probably an aromatic gum like balsam that was exuded from a tree, probably one of several species in the genus Commiphora.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 2:10–12:

     And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

• African bdellium (from Commiphora africana)
• Indian bdellium (from Commiphora wightii)
• Sicilian bdellium (from Daucus carota subsp. hispanicus)

From Ancient Greek βδέλλιον (bdéllion), see above.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈbdel.li.um/, [ˈbd̪ɛlːʲiʊ̃ˑ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈbdel.li.um/, [ˈbd̪ɛlːium]

bdellium n (genitive bdelliī or bdellī); second declension

1. Probably an aromatic gum exuded from a tree, probably one of several species in the genus Commiphora, used as an adulterant of the more costly myrrh.
2. The plant itself.

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

• “bdellium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• bdellium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette