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Lucy

proper noun

  1. female given name
  2. family name
  3. ancient hominid skeleton discovered in Ethiopia
L481773 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈluːsi/ / /ˈlʉwsɪj/ / /ˈlusi/

name

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.

  1. A female given name from Latin.

    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.

    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.

  2. A surname from Old French derived from place names in Normandy based on a male personal name, from Latin Lucius.

    Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me / Set from our o'ermatch'd forces forth for aid.

  3. The fossilized partial skeleton of a female Australopithecus afarensis discovered in Ethiopia, an early hominin; also, the individual whose skeleton this was.

    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.

  4. A place name:
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noun

Etymology: From Latin lūcius.

  1. The northern pike (a kind of fish).

    That a lucy or luce is the mature pike, every piscatorial schoolboy knows.