a Latin error for bosporus, from Greek bosporos, a name applied to several channels or straits between seas, literally "ox's ford," from bous "ox" (from PIE root *gwou- "ox, bull, cow") + poros "passage, ford" (see pore (n.)). It was especially the name of the strait between the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea (the Thracian Bosphorus).
Entries linking to bosphorus
*gwou-
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "ox, bull, cow," perhaps ultimately imitative of lowing; compare Sumerian gu, Chinese ngu, ngo "ox."
It forms all or part of: beef; Boeotian; Bosphorus; boustrophedon; bovine; bugle; Bucephalus; bucolic; buffalo; bugloss; bulimia; butane; butter; butyl; butyric; cow (n.); cowbell; cowboy; cowlick; cowslip; Euboea; Gurkha; hecatomb; kine.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit gaus, Greek bous, Latin bos, Old Irish bo, Latvian guovs, Armenian gaus, Old English cu, German Kuh, Old Norse kyr, Slovak hovado "cow, ox."
In Germanic and Celtic, of females only; in most other languages, of either gender. For "cow" Latin uses bos femina or vacca, a separate word of unknown origin. Other "cow" words sometimes are from roots meaning "horn, horned," such as Lithuanian karvė, Old Church Slavonic krava.
pore n.
late 14c., "minute opening, small orifice, or perforation" in the earth, a tree, the body of a human, animal, or insect, a bone, etc.," from Old French pore (14c.) and directly from Latin porus "a pore," from Greek poros "a pore," literally "passage, way," from PIE *poro- "passage, journey," suffixed form of PIE root *per- (2) "to lead, pass over."