mas

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈmaːs]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈmas]^[1]

Forms

mās m (genitive maris); third declension^[1] The neuter mare is rare, and Cicero has the genitive plural marium.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *mās-, of uncertain origin.^[3][4] Schrijver explains the alternation of the long and short vowel in the stem from an ablauting PIE paradigm Proto-Indo-European *meh₂-(o)s, *mh₂-(e)s-.^[3] Adams suggests that the same word, first meaning “penis”, is in masturbor.^[3] It was traditionally derived from Proto-Indo-European *méryos (“young man”), as in Sanskrit मर्य (márya, “young man”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it, as a slave whom the neighbours would take for a woman rather than a man.^[2][3] Köbler dates Plautus c. 250–184 BC.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it was the male of a species, of people and animals, as Caesar's “the nature of the female and the male is the same”, and of plants thought to be male, as Ovid's male olives.^[2] Pliny calls uneven numbers male.^[2] As an adjective it was male or masculine, as Cicero's male and female victims, and manly or virile.^[2][6] Döderlein says it is a man in the physical sense, while vir is a man in the moral sense.^[7]

Its diminutive masculus gave Old French masle and English male.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[2][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar speaks of the female and the male.^[2][5]
• late 14th century – English male is recorded, from masculus.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A male (of people, animals, plants).^[2][1]
2. (of numbers) Odd, uneven.^[2]

Adjective

1. Male, masculine.^[2][9]
2. Manly, virile.^[2]

Word family

• sēmimās
• masculus
• commasculō
• ēmasculō

Related words

• mālus
• vir
• English male

Usage notes

Varro uses mās and fēmina to show that the masculine and feminine form a pair which the neuter shares nothing with.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina (text of The Latin Library; book and paragraph numbers as there).