muceo

Forms

mūceō (present infinitive mūcēre); second conjugation, no passive, no perfect or supine stems^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin mūcus (“mucus, mould”) + -eō.^[2][1] The TLL compares aceō (“to be sour”), which stands beside it in its only Classical passage.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only Classical record is in Cato (234–149 BC), De agri cultura, of wine that is neither sour nor musty.^[2][4][3][5]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short mark it as pre-classical.^[4] It lived on in spoken Latin: French moisir, Occitan mosir and dialectal Spanish musir continue it.^[3][1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of musty wine.^[2][3][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be mouldy or musty.^[2][4][3]

Word family

• mūcidus
• mūcor
• mūcēscō

References

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