μύκης

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /mý.kɛːs/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈmy.cis/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈmy.cis/^[1]

Forms

μῠ́κης (múkēs) m (genitive μῠ́κητος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The traditional view makes it a formation in ⟨-η(τ)-⟩ from a noun like Latin mūcus (“mucus of the nose”), so that it belongs with μύσσομαι (mússomai, “to blow one's nose”) and μύξα (múxa, “mucus”); the same link between slime and fungus is seen in Slovene glíva (“agaric”) beside Lithuanian gleĩvės (“slime”).^[2][3][4] Furnée objected that the meanings of the word cannot all come from “slime”, since it also means the stump of a felled olive tree, and assumed a basic sense “prominence, extremity”; he compared μύσκλοι (múskloi), which Hesychius glosses as the stalks of dried figs.^[2][5] Beekes accepts this and considers it Pre-Greek, because of the variation between ⟨κ⟩ and ⟨σκ⟩ and the suffix ⟨-ης, -ητος⟩.^[2][5] PHILOGLOSSA rates the Pre-Greek attribution as very reliable.^[6]

The Etymologicum Magnum says that the city of Mycenae was named after the cap of Perseus' scabbard, which fell there.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is Archilochus, who uses it, with an Ionic genitive, for the penis; the sense “mushroom” appears in Epicharmus and Attic comedy.^[8][9][10]

Semantic evolution

Attic comedy and Theophrastus use it for a mushroom or another fungus.^[8][9] By its shape the word was extended to many round, knobbed things: the cap at the end of a scabbard (Hecataeus, Herodotus), the snuff that forms on a lamp-wick in damp weather, taken as a sign of rain (Aristophanes, Theophrastus, Aratus), fleshy growths on wounds in the Hippocratic writers and growths on trees in Theophrastus.^[8][9][3] An Attic inscription of 345/4 BC uses it for the stump of an olive tree.^[6][8]

The Atticist Phrynichus censured the plural μύκας.^[8] Modern Greek has μύκητας (mýkitas), a learned word that biology uses for the fungi as a whole.^[11]

Timeline

• 7th century BC – Archilochus uses it for the penis.^[8][9][12]
• 6th–5th century BC – Hecataeus uses it for the cap of a scabbard.^[8][12]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus tells how the cap fell from Cambyses' scabbard.^[8][3][12]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for the snuff of a lamp-wick.^[8][9][12]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it for mushrooms and for growths on trees.^[8][12]
• 2nd century AD – Pausanias tells the story of Mycenae and the scabbard cap.^[8][12]
• Modern Greek – It is revived as μύκητας (míkitas), the biological term for fungi.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mushroom or other fungus.^[8][9]
2. Any round, knobbed body shaped like a mushroom; the chape or cap at the end of a scabbard.^[8][9]
3. The penis.^[8][9]
4. (medicine) A fleshy excrescence on a wound.^[8][3]
5. A growth on trees.^[8]
6. The stump of a felled olive tree.^[8][6]
7. The snuff of a lamp-wick, a sign of coming rain.^[8][9]

Word family

• μυκήτινος (mukḗtinos)

Related words

• μύσσομαι (mússomai)
• μύξα (múxa)
• Latin mūcus

Usage notes

Ionic has the genitive μύκεω and an accusative μύκην, and Doric and Attic a plural μύκαι beside μύκητες.^[8][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e Chantraine, Pierre (2009), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. with a supplement (Chroniques d'étymologie grecque 1–10), Paris: Klincksieck
4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
7. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
10. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge