Meaning of "eloecea"?

December 6, 2005 4:59 PM

Meaning of "eloecea"?

Has anyone ever heard of the word "eloecea"? Google turns up nothing. I'm positive it's not spelled incorrectly. Thanks!

posted by zharptitsa to writing & language (23 comments total)

Not in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, or the American Heritage Dictionary.

Perhaps some context would help?
posted by grouse at 5:05 PM on December 6, 2005

Maybe 'alopecia' - loss of hair. Do you have a context for your positiveness?
posted by tellurian at 5:06 PM on December 6, 2005

Here is the context: Someone I know changed her name to "Eloecea." She told someone else I know that it meant such-and-such (she doesn't remember). I know I could just ask her what her name means, but I don't know her very well and rarely see her. But I'm just so curious. (It's possible she made it up... I think it's more likely that it means something in some foreign language.)
posted by zharptitsa at 5:12 PM on December 6, 2005

She made it up. Google Advanced Search doesn't find it in any language.
posted by nicwolff at 5:15 PM on December 6, 2005

Are you sure it wasn't Aloysia? That's the name of the verbena family (lemon verbena is Aloysia triphylla) and it's also the feminine version of Aloysius, which is cognate to Louis.
posted by tangerine at 5:24 PM on December 6, 2005

Not on google, google books, images, news, groups, froogle, dictionary.com, amazon.com. Did she write it down for you, or is this your written version of it spoken? Could be Aloysia. Did she maybe mean Aloeaceae? "One of many families or subfamilies into which some classification systems subdivide the Liliaceae but not widely accepted?" Great name for a girl.
posted by oxala at 5:26 PM on December 6, 2005

Sounds like Spanish non-existence El oecea.
posted by tellurian at 5:37 PM on December 6, 2005

She wrote the name down for my other friend. So she definitely spells it "Eloecea." However, it's possible she changed the spelling for simplicity or to make it...I don't know...more interesting.
posted by zharptitsa at 5:42 PM on December 6, 2005

Wait -- 10,000,000,000 indexed websites don't mention the word but you think one of the couple hundred users who read this thread might have heard of it?
posted by electric_counterpoint at 6:02 PM on December 6, 2005

Wait -- 10,000,000,000 indexed websites don't mention the word but you think one of the couple hundred users who read this thread might have heard of it?

One never knows.

If Google is sufficient, what's the point of Ask MeFi?

Seriously, some people around here know really abstruse stuff. I wouldn't have been excessively surprised if someone said "Oh, that's a word in an extinct language formerly spoken on Rarotonga. It means 'angry badger.'"

As far as I can tell, however, she made it up.
posted by musicinmybrain at 6:21 PM on December 6, 2005

Any background on the person herself?
The name itself could have been transliterated from any number of languages that could be using a different alphabet entirely.
posted by yeoz at 6:28 PM on December 6, 2005

Perhaps a corruption of Eloise/Heloise (itself of uncertain origin, possibly from Greek helios: sun or Old German Helewidis: sturdy)
posted by rob511 at 6:53 PM on December 6, 2005

Elysia is the homeland of the dread Elder Gods. (I guess it's unlikely she named herself after that, but I can never pass up an opportunity for a public Cthulhu fhtagn!) A quick google also turned up one of those hokey baby name sites which claims the name means "sweetly blissful."

Elysium is a section of the underworld. Supposedly it's a nice place.
posted by Marit at 7:46 PM on December 6, 2005

I like tellurian's suggestion.
posted by unknowncommand at 8:44 PM on December 6, 2005

Thanks unknowncommand, unless you meant my balding suggestion. zharptitsa may not get the answer here but I got something out of it. I'd never heard of Unilingua before and have spent a part of the day reading about it. As a result I'd change my answer to: eloecea = 'nonexistent container of semi-solid food'.
posted by tellurian at 9:47 PM on December 6, 2005

Are you sure it wasn't Aloysia?

Perhaps irrelevant, but I actually have a friend who goes by the online handle Aloysia for this reason.
posted by grouse at 11:30 PM on December 6, 2005

I would pronounce "eloecea" as Alecia. Perhaps it's one of those not-quite-phonetic not-clear-on-the-concept happenings?

(Like my good friend, Toilette? /apocryphal)
posted by metaculpa at 1:24 AM on December 7, 2005

I know it. It's the word for babbling that people make that imitates the sounds of speech or sounds, but isn't speech. Like, Nell? I associate it with babies or people with disabilities. Perhaps it is spelled wrong - it must be. How do I know it. It must be archaic and I came across it in my Drama or possibly Psychology studies, or, it's a term of grammar, like synecdoche. I'm serious, I'm confident this is something I've heard.
posted by rainbaby at 5:32 AM on December 7, 2005

Oh, I'm thinking of Echolalia. Maybe that's what she meant. Maybe she even purposely misspelled it to make it more like echolalia. Now, apparently, I am spelling echolalia wrong, and I've tried three different ways. Sorry.
posted by rainbaby at 5:35 AM on December 7, 2005

Seems like it would be pronounced pretty close to "Elisia", which is my sister's name - my dad named her that based on the Elysian Fields, I think.
posted by sluggo at 7:35 AM on December 7, 2005

It's a name, not a word, for heaven's sake.

She told someone else I know that it meant such-and-such

She's probably full of shit. There's an amazing amount of nonsense around when it comes to names. I wouldn't worry about it, but if you're that curious, ask her (and report back, because now we're all curious).
posted by languagehat at 9:04 AM on December 7, 2005

reminds me of cloacae, which I always thought was a very pretty word to describe bird butts.
posted by macinchik at 2:22 PM on December 7, 2005

Not just butts, my friend. Not just butts.
posted by metaculpa at 1:00 PM on December 11, 2005