Etymologically
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mugio

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈmuː.ɡi.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈmuː.d͡ʒi.o][1]

Forms

mūgiō (present infinitive mūgīre, perfect active mūgīvī or mūgiī, supine mūgītum); fourth conjugation, no passive[1]

Etymology

It is an imitation of a cow's lowing, which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *mūg- and Proto-Indo-European *mū̆g-.[2][1] He compares Ancient Greek μυκάομαι (mūkáomai, “to low, bellow”), μύζω (múzō, “to mutter”) and Hittite mūgae- (“to invoke, entreat”), and perhaps Umbrian mugatu.[2][3][4] The rhetorical handbook addressed to Herennius lists it among words made by imitating natural sounds.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Varro,[2] whose Menippean Satires say the ox lows, the sheep bleats.[3]

Semantic evolution

It is to low, moo or bellow, of cattle: Livy has driven cattle lowing, and Juvenal's proverb mocks a man who thinks Agamemnon bellows when an ox is struck.[3][5] Petronius applies it to a bellowing poet.[3] Of things it is to make a deep loud noise, to roar or rumble: Virgil's tripod seemed to bellow from the opened shrine, Lucretius has a trumpet booming low.[3] Of a place it is to echo with lowing or groaning, as Statius' palace.[3] Church Latin glosses it to rumble, groan, bellow or low.[6]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro of the lowing ox.[3][2][7]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of a booming trumpet.[3][7]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of a bellowing tripod.[3][7]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius of a palace echoing with groans.[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. Of cattle, to low, moo, bellow; of people, to bellow.[3][5][1][6]
  2. Of things, to roar, rumble; of instruments, to boom.[3][1]
  3. Of a place, to echo with lowing or groaning.[3]

Word family

  • admūgiō
  • circummūgiō
  • dēmūgiō
  • ēmūgiō
  • immūgiō
  • mūgīnor
  • mūgītor
  • mūgītus
  • remūgiō
  • mūgitō

Usage notes

The porta Mūgiōnis or Mūciōnis was an ancient gate of Rome on the Palatine, which Varro says was named from lowing.[3]

References

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