mugghiare

Forms

mugghiare (first-person singular present mùgghio, first-person singular past historic mugghiài, past participle mugghiàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include muggiare, mughiare, mugiare, moiare and muiare.^[2][3] The popular Tuscan form is mugliare.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mugulāre, for classical Latin mūgilāre (“to bray”).^{[6][7][8][9][3][10]} Nocentini calls it a diminutive and Devoto–Oli an iterative of mūgīre (“to low, moo”), and DELI notes that the imitative base is widespread outside Romance too.^[7][8][6] Wiktionary and GRADIT derive the word directly from the classical verb.^[1][11] Related dialect forms include Sardinian muilare and Venetian mugiar.^[2]

The base verb is imitative of a cow's lowing, from Proto-Indo-European *mū̆g-.^[12] Its cognates include Ancient Greek μυκάομαι (mūkáomai, “to low, bellow”) and Lithuanian mūkti (“to bellow”).^[12]

DELI refers to D'Ovidio for the relation between this verb and mugliare.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Restoro d'Arezzo, 1282, in Aretine, for the deep, long call of cattle.^[3] DELI's oldest form is muggiare in Giamboni before 1292, where a golden calf lowed so loudly that it was heard in Jerusalem.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The form mugghiare is in Angiolieri and Dante before 1313.^[6] Angiolieri also used it of a person howling: Facciavi mugghiare a tutte l'ore / del giorno, come mugghia bue od orso (“may it make you bellow at every hour of the day, as an ox or a bear bellows”).^[6] Dante's storm-wind mugghia come fa mar per tempesta (“roars as the sea does in a storm”).^[9][4] Boccaccio, before 1375, explained that mugghiare properly belongs to oxen and is borrowed for the roar of the sea because that has no word of its own.^[6]

The TLIO already has the verb for other large animals and for the loud, long noise of objects and natural forces.^[3] Later poets used it for lions, and Carducci called oxen i mugghianti “the bellowing ones”.^[9][13][4] The noun mugghio is recorded before 1292 in Giamboni.^[6]

Timeline

• 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo uses the verb.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses muggiare and mugghio.^[6]
• Before 1313 – Angiolieri and Dante use mugghiare;^[6] Angiolieri uses it of a person.^[6]
• Before 1375 – Boccaccio comments on its use for the sea.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of cattle: to bellow, to low loudly and long; more rarely of other large animals such as lions.^{[11][8][5][9][3]}
2. Of a person: to howl, to yell with pain or rage: mugghiava per la ferita.^{[11][8][5][9]}
3. (figurative) Of the sea, the wind or thunder: to roar, to rumble deeply: il mare mugghiava contro gli scogli.^{[11][8][5][4]}

Word family

• mugghio
• mugghiante
• mugghiamento
• rimugghiare

Related words

• muggire
• mugolare
• Latin mugio

Usage notes

The verb is literary or uncommon; the everyday word is muggire.^[11][9][1] The present is io mùgghio and the auxiliary avere.^[8][9]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 49
3. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
11. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET