moechus

Forms

moechus m (genitive moechī, feminine moecha); second declension^[1] An inscription has the vocative moice;^[2][3] moecus is also found.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μοιχός (moikhós, “adulterer”).^[2][4][1] Köbler mentions, with a question mark, Pokorny's root Proto-Indo-European *meyǵʰ- (“to urinate”) for the Greek word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus, whose Miles Gloriosus calls a man a great womaniser.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

It is an adulterer or fornicator, in Terence, Horace and Juvenal.^[4] A grammarian insists that the word for adulterer is spelled with ⟨oe⟩, but inscriptions have the vocative ⟨moice⟩ and the spellings ⟨moecus⟩ and ⟨moeccus⟩ occur;^[2][3] Catullus has the feminine vocative ⟨moeca⟩.^[2][3] Church Latin glosses it adulterer.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a womaniser.^[4][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it.^[4][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it.^[4][5]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal uses it.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An adulterer; a fornicator.^[2][4][6][1]

Word family

• moecha
• moechimōnium
• moechor

Related words

• moechas
• moechissō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson