mosca

Forms

mosca f (plural moscas)^[1] The variant moxca spread widely in the 15th and 16th centuries, for example in the Celestina.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin musca (“fly”).^[2][4][5][1] It has been in general use at every period and is common to all the Romance languages.^[2] The same Latin word is Portuguese mosca, Galician mosca, Catalan mosca, Occitan mosca, French mouche, Italian mosca and Romanian muscă.^[6][7][1]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *muskā and Proto-Indo-European *mu-s-, perhaps an imitation of the humming of flies and gnats; the extension with -s- is shared by Latin, Greek, Balto-Slavic and Germanic.^[8] Cognates are Ancient Greek μυῖα (muîa, “fly”), Lithuanian musė̃, Old Church Slavonic моуха (muxa), Old English mycg and Old High German mucka.^[8][1] The English word midge belongs here.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word first in a Mozarabic document of 1161, then in the Calila and in Juan Ruiz.^[2][4] The earliest hit in the CDH is in the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), in a comparison: asi como la mosca quando esta enel rrodezno “just as the fly when it is on the millwheel”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario prescribes crushed flies for a wasp sting.^[10] Covarrubias (1611) gives the proverb Hazeos miel y comeros han moscas and says that a clinging person is called a mosca.^[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades adds “money”, in a jocular style, with a quotation from Villaviciosa, and the bore called mosca de burro.^[12][2] Moscas blancas “snowflakes” and moscas “sparks from a fire” are other old figurative uses.^[2][6][5]

In the Canaries mosca de caballo is the horsefly, recorded from 1779.^[13] In Chile mosca is also an abbreviated signature.^[14] In sport it names the flyweight class in boxing, and in television the channel's logo in a corner of the screen.^[1]

Timeline

• 1161 – first record, in a Mozarabic document.^[2][4]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo compares something to a fly on a millwheel.^[9]
• 1250 – the Calila, which Corominas cites.^[15][2]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario of Alfonso X uses flies in a remedy.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin musca and Greek-derived myia.^[16]
• 1551 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, for green spotted flies.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records a proverb and the sense “clinging person”.^[11]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “money”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fly, the common two-winged insect, about six millimetres long, with a black body and a sucking proboscis.^[5][1]
2. The tuft of hair that grows between the lower lip and the chin, a soul patch.^[5]
3. A small black or very dark spot.^[5]
4. Goods of any kind.^[5]
5. An artificial fly for fishing (mosca artificial).^[5]
6. (colloquial) Money, ready cash.^[5][12]
7. (colloquial) A tiresome, pestering person.^[5][11]
8. (colloquial) A nagging worry or annoyance: Desde la llamada anda con mosca.^[5]
9. (zoology) Any of the insects of the suborder Brachycera.^[5]
10. (colloquial, in the plural) Sparks that fly from a fire.^[5]
11. (boxing) The flyweight class.^[1]
12. (Chile) An abbreviated signature.^[14]

Word family

• moscarda
• moscón
• mosquear
• mosquete
• mosquito
• amoscar
• atrapamoscas
• matamoscas
• moscardón
• mosco
• papamoscas

Related words

• Latin musca
• French mouche

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 159
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mosca
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mosca
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. mosca
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5766
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. musca
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. mosca
10. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. mosca
11. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1149
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 613
13. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. mosca
14. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. mosca
15. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. mosca
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 382
17. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. mosca