Lucy
Language: English
Part of speech: name
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈluːsi/
rhymes: -uːsi
Etymology: From Middle English Lucy, from Old French Lucie (notably after the Christian martyr Lucia of Syracuse), from Latin Lucia (feminine of Lucius, a Roman praenomen), from lux (“light”).
The name of the Australopithecus skeleton came from the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, which was being played repeatedly at the dig site camp at the time of the discovery. The slang term for LSD also derives from the song name, which many believe is essentially a reference to the drug.
Senses: examples: text: Then did my younger brother Amidas / Love that same other Damzell, Lucy bright, / To whom but little dowre allotted was; / Her vertue was the dowre, that did delight.
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 9:
text: She liv'd unknown, and few could know / When Lucy ceas'd to be; / But she is in her Grave, and, Oh ! / The difference to me.
ref: 1800, W[illiam] Wordsworth, “She dwelt among the untrodden ways”, in Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems. […], 2nd edition, London: […] T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Co., […], published 1800, →OCLC, page 52:
text: But certainly there are some names which seem to belong to particular classes of character, to form the mind and even influence the destiny: Louisa, now; - is not your Louisa necessarily a die-away damsel, who reads novels, and holds her head on one side, languishing and given to love! Is not Lucy a pretty soubrette, a wearer of cast gowns and cast smiles, smart and coquettish!
ref: 1830, Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village: Fourth Series: Cottage Names:
text: Now we'll just use a fiction name / Lucy that sounds nice / A name we can remember / Without repeating twice / / My name is so old fashioned / And they are very few / But some will have a puzzled look / And whisper Lucy who?
ref: 2009, Dora Raymond, Aunt Dora's Legacy, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 19:
glosses: A female given name from Latin.
examples: text: Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me / Set from our o'ermatch'd forces forth for aid.
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]:
glosses: A surname from Old French derived from place names in Normandy based on a male personal name, from Latin Lucius.
examples: text: A new analysis of Lucy’s bones suggests that she may have fallen to her death from a tall tree. […] In 1974, scientists working in Ethiopia uncovered an extraordinary female skeleton, whom they called Lucy. She was 3.2 million years old, and belonged to a new species of hominid now known as Australopithecus afarensis.
ref: 2016 August 29, Ed Yong, “What Killed the World’s Most Famous Fossil?”, in The Atlantic:
topics: archaeology
history
human-sciences
sciences
glosses: The fossilized partial skeleton of a female Australopithecus afarensis discovered in Ethiopia, an early hominin; also, the individual whose skeleton this was.
glosses: A place name:
A village in Montmort-Lucy commune, Marne department, Grand Est, France.
glosses: A place name:
A commune in Moselle department, Grand Est, France.
glosses: A place name:
A commune in Seine-Maritime department, Normandy, France.
glosses: A place name:
An unincorporated community in Houston County, Alabama, United States.
Derived terms: Miss Lucy
Montmort-Lucy
Related terms: word: Lucia
word: Luci
word: Lucile
word: Lucille
sense: male given names
word: Lucius
sense: male given names
word: Lucian