mural

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mūrālis (“of or relating to a wall, growing on a wall”),^[2][3][4] partly through French mural,^[5][6][7][8] from mūrus (“wall”) and the suffix -ālis.^[2][4] The OED compares mural (15th century, earlier in couronne murale (“mural crown”)), Italian murale and Spanish mural.^[2] The Latin noun goes back to an older form moerus,^[3][9][7] and is related to moenia (“walls, defensive walls”), from which come mūniō (“to fortify, defend”) and English muniment and munition.^[10][7][3] Etymonline and Barnhart trace it to Proto-Indo-European *mei- (“to fix; to build fences or fortifications”), also the source of Old English mǣre (“boundary, landmark”).^[9][3] The noun "wall painting" is a 20th-century shortening of mural painting.^[2][3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In mural crown, the crown or garland that the ancient Romans gave to the first soldier to climb the wall of a besieged town: probably before 1439, in Lydgate's Fall of Princes.^[2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

After the Roman mural crown, the adjective took the general sense "placed or executed on a wall" in the mid-16th century,^[6][2] first in 1561, in Eden's translation of Cortés's Arte of Navigation,^[2] the date MWU gives as its first known use.^[4] From 1586 it also meant "of, relating to, or like a wall",^[2] and Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "pertaining to a wall", quoting Milton's "mural breach" and Evelyn's "mural fruit", fruit grown against a wall.^[11] Later technical uses followed in astronomy (the mural quadrant or circle, set on a wall in the meridian, 1674), in geology (1774), and in zoology, botany and medicine, of the wall of an organ or cell (1872).^[2] The noun meant a fruit tree trained against a wall in the late 17th century.^[2][12] The modern noun, a painting on a wall, is a shortening of mural painting, recorded from 1850:^[9] the OED dates it from 1908, originally in the United States,^[2][4] Etymonline from 1915 and Barnhart from 1921.^[9][3] A separate noun mural, a wall, was borrowed from Middle French muraille and was used from about 1473 to 1555.^[2][12]

Timeline

• probably before 1439 – mural crown, in Lydgate's Fall of Princes.^[2][3]
• c. 1473 – a separate noun mural, a wall, from French (obsolete by 1555).^[2]
• 1561 – placed or executed on a wall.^[2][4]
• 1586 – of or relating to a wall; like a wall.^[2]
• 1664 – of a fruit tree, growing against a wall (obsolete).^[2]
• 1674 – in astronomy, of an instrument fixed to a wall in the meridian.^[2]
• 1850 – mural painting, a painting on a wall.^[9]
• 1872 – in zoology, botany and medicine, of the wall of an organ, cyst or cell.^[2]
• 1908 – noun, a painting on a wall (originally US).^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large painting or other artwork made directly on a wall or ceiling: The children painted a mural of the harbour on the school's back wall.^[13][4][2]

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, or like a wall.^[13][4][2]
2. Placed on or made as part of a wall: a mural tablet.^[4][2]
3. In medicine, of or involving the wall of an organ or cavity.^[4][2]
4. mural crown: in ancient Rome, a crown given to the first soldier to scale the wall of a besieged town.^[2][12][14]

Word family

• muralist
• muralism
• photomural
• mural crown

Related words

• intramural
• extramural
• immure
• muniment
• munition

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray