Etymology and origin of the Latin word manduco
manduco1 chew, eat
- Confidence
- Established
- Formation
- Derivation
- First attested
- c. 180–102 BC, Lucilius
- Ultimate origin
- Latin mandō
Pronunciation
Forms
mandūcō (present infinitive mandūcāre, perfect active mandūcāvī, supine mandūcātum); first conjugation[1] Also deponent, mandūcor, in Lucilius, Afranius and Pomponius.[2][3][4]
Etymology
The verb “chew” is from Latin mandūcus (“a masked figure with champing jaws; glutton”), formed with the verbal suffix ⟨-ō⟩.[2][1][5] That noun is built on mandō (“to chew”), and Lewis and Short simply call mandūcō a lengthened form of that verb.[5][1][3]
It is the source of Old French mangier and so of French manger,[1][4] and of Catalan menjar, Romanian mânca and Sardinian mandicare.[1]
Earliest recorded meaning
De Vaan's first author is Lucilius,[5] who has the deponent: quod mandūcāmur in ōre, “what we chew in the mouth”.[2][6]
Semantic evolution
In early Latin and again from the 1st century AD it meant to chew: Varro has pigeons fattened on chewed white bread, Seneca uses the neuter plural participle for chewed food, and Celsus recommends chewing mustard.[2][6][3] It was also colloquial for “eat”: Augustus, quoted by Suetonius, writes that he ate two mouthfuls, and Petronius and Apuleius use it the same way.[2][6][1]
In Late Latin “to eat” became its usual sense; the Vulgate uses it,[4][1] and Ecclesiastical Latin glosses it chew and eat.[7]
Timeline
- c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius uses the deponent mandūcor for chewing.[2][5][8]
- 116–27 BC – Varro speaks of chewed bread fed to pigeons.[2][6][8]
- before 66 AD – Petronius uses it for “eat”.[2][6][8]
- c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius quotes Augustus saying he ate two mouthfuls.[2][6][8]
- 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it in Isaiah 7:22.[4][8]
Meanings
Verb
Word family
- mandūcātiō
manduco2 glutton
- Confidence
- Established
- Formation
- Derivation
- First attested
- Pomponius
- Ultimate origin
- Latin mandō
Etymology tree of manduco2
From the same root · manduco2
Pronunciation
Forms
mandūcō m (genitive mandūcōnis); third declension[1]
Etymology
The noun “glutton” is from Latin mandō (“to chew”),[4] by way of the deponent ⟨mandūcor⟩ with the suffix ⟨-ō⟩, ⟨-ōnis⟩ of personal nouns.[2] The TLL compares mandūcus.[9]
Earliest recorded meaning
It first appears in an Atellan farce of Pomponius, quoted by Nonius, where the manuscripts read mandūcus.[4][3][9]
Semantic evolution
Lewis and Short call it post-classical.[3] Apuleius uses it in the Metamorphoses,[2][3][6] and glossaries equate it with words for a glutton such as comedo, vorax and edax.[9]
Timeline
Meanings
Noun
Related words
- mandō2
- English manducate
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
- ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
- ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
- ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Descendants
- French manger
Cite this entry
“Manduco.” Etymologically, 23 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/manduco. Accessed 23 Oct. 2026.
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