striges

Striges is a Latin term most often encountered as the plural of strix, a word in classical Latin referring to nocturnal birds of prey, particularly owls. In ancient texts, strix and striges could denote the birds themselves and were sometimes imbued with supernatural or ominous connotations, appearing in omen literature and folklore as entities associated with the night.

In modern biological language, owls belong to the order Strigiformes, with the family Strigidae containing the typical owls, including the genus Strix. The word striges is not used in current scientific taxonomy; it remains of historical or literary interest when discussing owls in ancient sources.

In folklore and legend, variants of the term—most notably striga or strigae—came to denote witch-like beings connected with sorcery and nocturnal predation, sometimes described as female spirits that prey on infants or blood. In some later traditions, striges in classical texts are conflated with these figures, illustrating the overlap between natural history and myth in medieval and early modern storytelling.

Related terms include Strix, the genus within Strigidae; Strigidae as the family of typical owls; Tytonidae as the other owl family; and Striga as a folkloric or legendary figure. Striges thus occupies a historical linguistic niche, bridging classical references to real owls and their later mythic associations.