muggire

Forms

muggire (first-person singular present muggìsco, first-person singular past historic muggìi, past participle muggìto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mūgiō (“to low, bellow”), a verb of imitative origin built on the sound of a bull's lowing.^[2][3][4][1] Its derivative mūgītus (“lowing”) gave muggito.^[2][3] The inherited verb survives in Sardinian muire and Romanian mugi, and Old French had muire.^[3][5][6] French mugir, Spanish mugir and Portuguese mugir were taken from Latin again as learned words.^[3][5][6]

The imitative formation was already Indo-European: de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *mū̆g- and compares Ancient Greek μυκάομαι (mukáomai, “to low, bellow”) and μύζω (múzō, “to mutter, moan”), Hittite mūgae- (“to invoke, entreat”) and Lithuanian mūkti (“to bellow”).^[7][1] Nocentini derives the Greek verb from an older *mugyō and glosses the Hittite verb “to lament”.^[3]

The doubled /ddʒ/ of the Italian verb is the same as in fuggire and ruggire.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Sermoni subalpini, a 13th-century Franco-Piedmontese text, and the first sense is the long, deep call of cattle.^[9] DELI dates the word to before 1327, in Cecco d'Ascoli, who uses it of a captured stag: Quand'è preso forte mugge e piagne (“when it is caught it bellows loudly and weeps”).^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian the verb was used of other large animals and of a person groaning deeply in pain.^[9] Jacopone da Todi applies it to the sea (E 'l mare muggirà da tutti i lati, “and the sea will roar on every side”).^[11] DELI dates the literary sense “to roar”, of the sea, the wind or thunder, to Ariosto's Orlando furioso (1516), and notes that Latin already used the verb in this way.^[2] From the 16th century writers also used it of crowds and of people howling in anger or pain.^[10]

The derivative muggito appears as mugito before 1311 in Giordano da Pisa, and as muggito before 1566 in Annibal Caro.^[2] In the dialects the inherited type mugir was mostly displaced by forms of mugghiare, and survives in eastern Piedmont, in Alpine Lombard and in Engadine.^[6]

Timeline

• 13th century – The Sermoni subalpini use the verb of cattle.^[9]
• Before 1311 – Giordano da Pisa uses mugito “lowing”.^[2]
• Before 1327 – Cecco d'Ascoli uses muggire of a stag.^[2][10]
• 1516 – Ariosto uses it of the roaring of the sea, the wind and thunder.^[2]
• Before 1566 – Annibal Caro has the form muggito.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of cattle, to low or moo: to give the long deep call of a cow or bull: Nel prato le vacche muggivano piano.^{[4][12][13][1]}
2. (by extension) Of a person, to bellow or howl with pain or rage.^{[4][12][14][1]}
3. (figurative, literary) Of the sea, the wind or thunder, to roar: to make a deep, long, rumbling noise.^{[4][12][15][16]}

Word family

• muggito
• rimuggire

Related words

• mugghiare
• Latin mūgiō

Usage notes

The third person singular present is both muggisce and mugge.^[12][15][13] Mugghiare is a synonym.^[11][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2526
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 684