μῦς

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /mŷːs/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈmys/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈmys/^[1]

Forms

μῦς (mûs) m (genitive μῠός); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *mū́s, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *múHs (“mouse”), the old Indo-European name of the mouse.^[1][2] The long vowel was caused by a laryngeal, as the accent of Serbo-Croatian mȉš and Tocharian B maścitse (“mouse”) show.^[2] The accusative μῦν (mûn) is a new form made after ὗν (hûn).^[2][3]

Cognate with Latin mūs (“mouse”), Old High German mūs (“mouse”), Old English mūs (“mouse”), Sanskrit मूष् (mū́ṣ, “mouse”) and Old Armenian մուկն (mukn, “mouse; muscle”).^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first recorded use is in Herodotus (5th century BC), for mice.^[4][5] Aristophanes and Xenophon also have it.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It meant a mouse or rat.^[6] Aeschylus and later writers also used it for sea creatures, a mussel and a kind of whale.^[2][6] The Hippocratic writers and Aristotle used it for a muscle, from the mouse-like movement of certain muscles under the skin, a metaphor also found in Germanic, in Latin mūsculus (“little mouse; muscle”) and in Armenian.^[2][3] Proverbs spoke of “a mouse tasting pitch” (Demosthenes, Theocritus), of risking a bad outcome, and of the mountain in labour that gave birth to a mouse (Plutarch).^[6]

Its compounds include μυγαλῆ (mugalê) “shrew-mouse” (Herodotus) and βατραχομυομαχία (batrakhomuomakhía), “battle of frogs and mice”.^[2][1] Modern Greek has the learned μυς.^[7]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for mice.^[4][5]
• 5th century BC – Hippocratic writers use it for a muscle.^[2][5]
• 4th century BC – Demosthenes has the proverb of the mouse tasting pitch.^[6][5]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch has the mountain that gave birth to a mouse.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mouse, rat.^[8][6]
2. A mussel; a kind of whale.^[2][1]
3. A muscle.^[2][6]

Word family

• βατραχομυομαχία (batrakhomuomakhía)
• μυάγρα (muágrā)
• μυγαλέη (mūgaléē)
• μύϊνος (múïnos)
• μυοσωτίς (muosōtís)
• μυών (mūṓn)

Related words

• Latin mūs
• English mouse

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
5. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
6. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
8. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press