shrub genus, 1846, from the name of German physician and botanist C.E. Weigel (1748-1831).
fem. proper name, literally "inhabiting woods," from Latin silva "wood, forest" (see sylvan). Also the genus name of warblers, hence adjective Sylvian.
name of a genus of Old World monkeys, Modern Latin, from Portuguese macaca, fem. of macaco, a name from an African language of the Congo (compare macaque).
1913, the genus name, coined 1900 in Modern Latin by Joseph Lignières, French-born Argentine bacteriologist, in reference to U.S. veterinary surgeon Daniel E. Salmon (1850-1914), who isolated a type of the bacteria in 1885.
plant genus, mostly herbaceous climbers, 1550s, "periwinkle," from Latin clematis, from Greek klematis, in Dioscorides as the name of a climbing or trailing plant (OED says probably the periwinkle) with long and lithe branches, diminutive of klema "vine-branch, shoot or twig broken off" (for grafting), from klan "to break" (see clastic).
genus of woody vines, 1819, formed by Thomas Nuttall, English botanist, in recognition of American anatomist Caspar Wistar (1761-1818) of Philadelphia + abstract noun ending -ia. The -e- apparently is a misprint. The Wistar Institute was founded in 1892 by his great-nephew and named for him.
neighborhood near Chelsea in London, named for Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), who purchased the manor of Chelsea in 1712 and whose celebrated collections contributed to the British Museum. Previous to development the place was known as Great Bloody Field ["Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names"]. The tree genus Sloanea was named for him. Sloane Ranger is attested from 1975, with a play on Lone Ranger.
fem. proper name, also the name of a butterfly genus. As a name, not much used in U.S. before 1950. It appears to have been coined by Swift c. 1711 as a pseudonym for Esther Vanhomrigh, who was romantically attached to him, and composed of elements of her name. He used it in private correspondence and published it in the poem "Cadenus and Vanessa" (1713).
The name Cadenus is an anagram of Decanus; that of Vanessa is formed much in the same way, by placing the first syllable of her sir-name before her christian-name, Hessy. [William Monck Mason, "History and Antiquities of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, Near Dublin," 1820]
As the name of a genus of butterflies that includes the Red Admiral and the Painted Lady, it dates to 1808, chosen by Danish entomologist Johan Christian Fabricius (1745-1808) for unknown reasons. He has no obvious connection to Swift, and the theory that it was intended for *Phanessa, from Greek phanes "a mystical divinity in the Orphic system" does no honor to his classical learning.
frog genus, 2010, literally "child toad," from Greek paedo- "child" (see pedo-) + phrynē typically "toad," but occasionally "frog" (the usual Greek for "frog" was batrakhos), which is perhaps from PIE root *bher- (2) "bright; brown," or else from a local pre-Greek word. It includes Paedophryne amauensis, which was formally named 2012 and is considered the world's smallest vertebrate. The amauensis is from Amau village in Papua New Guinea, near which it was first found.
