murena

Forms

murena f (plural murene)^[1] The oldest Italian form is Old Italian morena;^[2] murena appears in the 14th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mūrēna, also spelled muraena, which is from Ancient Greek μύραινα (múraina), a fish named by Aristotle.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Zingarelli calls the Italian word learned.^[7] The oldest Italian form Old Italian morena stands beside Occitan morena, Catalan morena, Spanish morena and Portuguese moreia, while French murène was taken from Latin again.^[3][2]

The origin of the Greek word is unclear.^[2][7] Nocentini thinks it probably comes from μύρον (múron, “unguent, perfume”), for the fish's smooth, greasy skin.^[3] DELI calls the Latin word an old formal adaptation of the Greek one, and reports a view that puts the Greek word in an Indo-European family of words meaning “fat, slimy”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, morena, are in B. Giamboni, before 1292, and in the Tuscan bestiary of about 1300, for the long, scaleless, fierce fish with venomous glands;^[2] murena is first found in a 14th-century translation of Cicero.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin-looking murena won out over morena in the literary language, and Berni and Redi wrote murene, and Pulci morena.^[8][9] Berni praises the fish in a comic rhyme, ranking i ragni e le murene (“weevers and morays”) first among fish.^[8]

In 1738 P. Artedi set up the scientific genus Muraena, to which Muraena helena belongs.^[10] The modern dictionaries describe a predatory reef fish up to about one and a half metres long, valued for its flesh and feared for its painful bite.^{[4][11][7][6]} English had morene for the fish from 1770 (OED 1773), now obsolete.^[12]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – B. Giamboni uses the form morena.^[2]
• c. 1300 – The Tuscan bestiary has morena.^[2]
• 14th century – Murena appears in a translation of Cicero.^[2]
• 1738 – P. Artedi names the genus Muraena.^[10]
• 1770 – English morene is recorded.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Moray eel: the common name of the fishes of the family Muraenidae, especially Muraena helena of the Mediterranean, an eel-like, edible fish whose bite is dangerous.^{[4][11][13][1]}
2. (zoology) Murena, with a capital, the genus of the family Muraenidae to which the moray belongs.^[4][13]

Word family

• murenide
• murenoide

Related words

• Latin murena
• Ancient Greek μύραινα (múraina)

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
10. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2532
11. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse