Pliny

• Plinius

Ultimately from Latin Plīnius, an Italic name of obscure origin.

• IPA^(key): /ˈplɪni/

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• Rhymes: -ɪni

Pliny (plural Plinys or Plinies)

1. An ancient Roman praenomen.
   • 1828, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 24, number 147:

     The two Plinys, Lucan, (though again under the disadvantage of verse) Petronius Arbiter, and Quintilian, but above all, the Senecas, (for a Spanish cross appears to improve the quality of the rhetorician) have left a body of rhetorical composition such as no modern nation has rivalled.

   • 1836, Thomas Frognall Dibdin, Reminiscences of a Literary Life:

     Of Q. Curtius, the Demosthenes (both), Eutropius, Horace (first with a date), Homer, Justin, Livy, the two Plinies, Quintilian, Martial, Tacitus, and Virgil, the first editions; but my friend must not be allowed to have a succession of nights of undisturbed repose till he possesses the first Horace, and the first Roman edition of Virgil.

   • 1998 October 27, Suzy Menkes, “Russian Heritage:Inspiration in Gold, Humanity in Ivory”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 November 2025:

     The Scythian collection is designed not just to echo a past civilization, recorded in the classical works of Herodotos and Pliny; it is also intended as a clarion call to the Russians to look to their jewelry heritage and their wealth of precious stones.

   1. Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus (23–79 AD): an ancient Roman nobleman, scientist and historian, author of Naturalis Historia, "Pliny's Natural History".
      • a. 1776, Joseph Baretti, “Dialogue the Fortieth”, in Easy Phraseology for the Use of Those Persons Who Intend to Learn the Colloquial Part of the Italian Language‎^[2], 1835 edition, Turin: Joseph Bocca, page 236:

        I will leave off all my childish fooleries and diversions, and set about studying with such a rage, that when you come back next year, you may find the tongue I have now in my mouth more forky than that of some serpents mentioned by Pliny the naturalist.

   2. Pliny the Younger, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (63–c. 113): an ancient Roman statesman, orator, and writer, a great-nephew of Pliny the Elder.

• “Pliny”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.