suspiciosus

Suspiciosus is a Latin adjective meaning suspicious or dubious. In scholarly writing, it occasionally appears in Latinized form within scientific names as a descriptive epithet, though it is not a common term outside such contexts. When used in taxonomy, it follows the standard rule that adjectives agree in gender with the genus: suspiciosus (masculine), suspiciosa (feminine), and suspiciosum (neuter).

Etymology and form: the word is built from the Latin base suspicio, related to suspicion, with the typical adjectival suffix -osus, which yields the meaning “full of suspicion” or “suspicious.” The form suspiciosus is thus a standard masculine adjective in Latin grammar, used to modify a noun in a Latinized scientific name if the author chooses a descriptive epithet.

Taxonomic usage: in zoological or botanical nomenclature, adjectives like suspiciosus are selected by authors to convey a perceived characteristic of a species or to encode a narrative about the organism during description. As a Latin epithet, it must agree in gender with the genus and adhere to the conventions of the relevant nomenclatural code (for example, the ICZN or the ICN). Outside formal naming, the term is rarely encountered in modern prose and is mostly of historical or linguistic interest.

In broader use, suspiciosus may appear in discussions of Latin morphology or in pseudo-Latin phrases in literature, but it does not denote a widely recognized concept or entity beyond its role as an adjective. See also: Latin adjectives in scientific naming, taxonomic nomenclature.