moly

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mōly,^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek μῶλυ (mō̂lu),^[2][6][7][8] a word of unknown origin, probably a loanword.^[2][7] Beekes takes it as probably Pre-Greek, comparing μώλυζα (mṓluza), which has a non-Greek suffix, and rejects all the proposed Indo-European etymologies.^[9][7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the Shorter Oxford relate it, perhaps, to the Sanskrit word for "root".^[10][11] The OED compares Italian moli (before 1498) and Middle French moly (1550).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A herb with magical powers that, in Homer's Odyssey, Hermes gives to Odysseus to protect him against Circe: 1546, in T. Langley's translation of P. Vergil.^[2][10] Etymonline dates the word to the 1570s.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Homer mentions the plant only once, in the tenth book of the Odyssey,^[8][9] describing its black root and milk-white flower.^[10][7] Already in antiquity it was identified in various ways: Theophrastus reports it as an Arcadian name for a kind of garlic.^[9] English followed the herbalists: from 1578 the name was given to a coastal plant, perhaps sea thrift, then from 1597, in Gerard's Herball, to various kinds of garlic grown for ornament,^[2] especially the yellow-flowered Allium moly of southern Europe.^[2][11][3] Hoad dates the fabulous herb to the 16th century and the wild garlic to the 17th.^[4] Johnson (1755), quoting Miller, wrote that moly, or wild garlic, is of several sorts, "as the great moly of Homer".^[12] The mythical herb stayed alive in poetry: Weekley quotes Milton's Comus, "That moly / That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave".^[6]

Timeline

• 1546 – the magic herb that Hermes gave Odysseus.^[2][10]
• 1578 – a coastal plant with grasslike leaves, perhaps sea thrift (obsolete).^[2]
• 1597 – kinds of garlic grown for ornament, later especially yellow moly.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Greek mythology) A magic herb with a black root and white flowers, which Hermes gave to Odysseus to protect him from the spells of Circe.^[3][10][2]
2. A wild garlic of southern Europe, Allium moly, grown for its dense clusters of yellow flowers.^[3][10][2]
3. Any of various plants once identified with the moly of Homer.^[2][11]

Related words

• molybdenum

Usage notes

Moly is also a shortening of molybdenum, pronounced /ˈmɒli/ in Britain:^[2][11][10] from 1936 in engineering, often in the names of alloys such as chrome-moly, and since 1963, colloquially, for molybdenum disulphide used as a lubricant.^[2][11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.