Friday, January 21, 2011

aus·pex

Aus·pex [ˈɔːspɪˌsiːz] -- noun (plural aus·pi·ces)
  1. an augur of ancient Rome, that is "one who observes flights of birds for the purpose of taking omens". From Latin: observer of birds, from avis ("bird") and specere ("to look").

3 comments:

Unknown said...

The Latin verb is "spicere", not "specere".

extrala said...

Both the dictionary and Wiktionary refer to "specere" as the correct verb.

See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/specere

Unknown said...

I did some research and the form "specere" is archaic. "Spicere" is the classic one. So in the end they are both correct :)