syrtis

See syrt.

syrtis (plural syrtes)

1. (obsolete) A quicksand.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Quenched in a boggy syrtis, neither sea / Nor good dry land.

• “syrtis”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Borrrowed from Ancient Greek Σύρτις (Súrtis), name of two large sandbanks off the coast of Libya.

syrtis f (genitive syrtis); third declension

1. sandbank, sand bar, quicksand
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.110-112:

     [...] trīs Eurus ab altō
     in brevia et syrtīs urget, miserābile vīsū,
     inlīditque vadīs atque aggere cingit harēnae.

     [...] three [ships] the Southeaster drives from the deep sea onto shallow sandbanks – [a sight] miserable to behold – and dashes [them] on the shoals and surrounds [them] with mounds of sand.
     (Latin texts vary: “syrtis” or “syrtes.” Specifically, the poetic geography could intend either “Syrtis Major,” now known as the Gulf of Sidra, or “Syrtis Minor,” now the Gulf of Gabès. The Greek east or southeast wind was Eurus.)

Third-declension noun (i-stem, accusative singular in -im or -in, ablative singular in -ī).

• → English: syrt