immugio

Forms

immūgiō (present infinitive immūgīre, perfect active immūgīvī or immūgiī, supine immūgītum); fourth conjugation, no passive^[1] It is also spelled inmūgiō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + mūgiō (“to low, bellow”).^[2][1][4] De Vaan calls mūgiō an imitation of a cow's lowing, from Proto-Italic *mūg- and Proto-Indo-European *mū̆g-,^[5] cognate with Ancient Greek μυκάομαι (mukáomai, “to low, bellow”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Virgil, who uses it of Etna roaring in its hollow caverns, curvīs immūgiit Aetna cavernīs, and of a palace resounding with mourning.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it a poetic word.^[3] Seneca uses it of a lion bellowing and of the sea, fire and caves roaring or resounding, and Silius Italicus of a bull at the altars, of the earth and of a storm in the yards of a ship.^[2] The TLL explains it as bellowing loudly, towards something or in a place.^[4]

In Christian Latin Jerome writes that the world will groan aloud when the Lord comes to judge, lūgubre mundus immūgiet.^[3]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of Etna and of a palace full of mourning.^[2]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of a lion and of the sea.^[2]
• 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus uses it of a bull and of a storm.^[2]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses it of the world on the Day of Judgement.^[3][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of animals, to bellow, roar (in or at).^[2][3]
2. Of the sea, the earth and other natural forces, to roar.^[2]
3. Of places, to resound.^[2][3]

Related words

• mūgiō
• mūgītus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de