Compilator (1 Viewer)

The Key explains:

compilator
L. compilator, compilatoris robber, pillager < compilare to plunder.

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...which is presumably right as long as one can assume authors using classical Latin.


Yet I can hardly refrain a feeling that in the case of Mathews & Iredale's "Emberiza compilator" [here], introduced in a paper titled "Sherborn and the systematist", published in a volume where [on p.21], Mathews also wrote:

SHERBORN. Compiler of the Index Animalium, the most important aid to the systematist yet published. A large number of notes in the present essay are due to his initiative and assistance, and thanks are here once again tendered for his generosity in allowing me publication of some of his most interesting notes.

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...the intent was probably quite different.

(compilator is late Latin for a compiler, e.g. [here].)

So a compilator is plundering other people by taking their work and putting it together into one place :-O :-O

Talk about a word changing meaning.

Niels

Thanks, Laurent. This made me revisit compilator; three taxa are so-named, according to the Comprehensive Index of Peters 1987. None are specifically dedicated, but I think you are correct in Emberiza, and consider that Corvus was named for Moore and Hypothymis for Boddaert. I shall adjust the Key , another compilation (!), in due course.