Rácz, János: The animal name farkas 'wolf' in compound plant names in Hungarian
In botanics, compound terms whose attributive first constituent is farkas 'wolf' are all of a strongly pejorative character; they express the uselessness, wildness, toxic nature of the plants that carry the name of that noxious, feared and despised animal. Popular names like farkasgégevirág (lit. 'wolf's throat flower'), farkasgomba (lit. 'wolf's mushroom'), farkashézaggyökér (lit. 'wolf's gap root'), farkasölőfű 'wolf's-bane', farkascseresznye 'deadly nightshade' (lit. 'wolf's cherry'), etc., all point to the harmfulness of the plant concerned. In contrast to plants denoted by the posterior constituent alone, terms prefixed by farkas refer to wild-growing, inferior species (e. g. bab 'beans' ~ farkasbab 'lupine', szőlő 'grapes' ~ farkasszőlő 'herb Paris'). In both ancient pieces of literature and medieval herbals, plants with names based on Latin lupus or Greek lykos (both: 'wolf') frequently occur: Lupinaster, Lupinus albus, Lupinus angustifolius, Lupinus luteus, Lycopodium, Lycopus, Lycoperdon, Faucaria lupina; later in the Romance languages we find names based on the former: Romanian ochiul lupului, lupoaie, gura-lupului, turta lupului, laptele lupului, marul lupului, French tue-loup, raisin de loup, also in other languages: English wolf's-bane, German Wolfstrapp, Wolfsmilch, Wolfsauge, Wolfslee, Serbo-Croatian vučja stopa, Slovak vlkovec obyčajný, etc. - This paper contains word historical notes on Hungarian plant names with farkas as their anterior constituent.