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mucidus

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word mucidus

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 250–184 BC Plautus More words from the 3rd century BC
Ultimate origin
Latin mūcus

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈmuː.kɪ.dʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈmuː.t͡ʃi.dus][1]

Forms

mūcidus (feminine mūcida, neuter mūcidum); first/second-declension adjective[1] It is also spelled muccidus.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin mūceō (“to be mouldy”) + -idus,[4][1][3] and mūceō is a derivative of mūcus (“mucus, snot”).[5] For the noun de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *(s)me/ouk-o- (“snot”), beside the root of ēmungō (“to wipe one's nose”), but he notes that it is not certain the two belong together: ⟨mūcus⟩ may instead go with Indo-European words for “moist” or “moor”.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on.[5][6] In the Epidicus a speaker complains qui me emunxisti mucidum, “you who have wiped my snotty nose”, that is, you who have cheated me;[2][3][5] in the Miles gloriosus a speaker boasts that he is no spitter or hawker and itidem minime mucidus, “not snotty either”.[4]

Semantic evolution

Beside the early sense “snivelling, snotty”, applied to worthless people, it came to mean “mouldy, musty”: Columella tells the grower to reject grapes that are mouldy or faulty,[4] Juvenal speaks of mouldy scraps of bread and Martial of musty wines.[2]

It survives in Romance, for example in Italian mucido.[3] Etymonline mentions the suggestion that a Vulgar Latin form *muscidus “mouldy, wet”, from mūcidus, lies behind Old French moiste and so behind English moist, whose origin is uncertain.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of snivelling, worthless people.[4][2][6]
  • 1st century AD – Columella uses it of mouldy grapes.[4][6]
  • 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it of musty wine.[2][6]
  • c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal uses it of mouldy bread.[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Snivelling, snotty; of people, worthless.[4][2][3]
  2. Mouldy, musty.[4][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon 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 d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
Cite this entry

“Mucidus.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/la/mucidus. Accessed 8 Nov. 2026.

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