murena

Forms

murēna f (genitive murēnae); first declension^[1] The OLD gives mūraena as a variant spelling.^[2] Georges finds both spellings well attested in manuscripts, with mūrēna apparently the later.^[3] Inscriptions mostly write ⟨-ren-⟩, and manuscripts often have mor-.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μύραινα (múraina),^[2][1][5] a Greek word whose further origin Köbler finds unclear.^[6] The Romans knew it was foreign: Varro lists it among the fish names taken from abroad, after its Greek name,^[7] and Isidore says the Greeks gave it its name because it coils itself into circles.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[6] for the moray: me quasi murenam exossare cogitat, “he means to bone me like a moray”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It names a sea fish the Romans were very fond of eating,^[9][3] mentioned by Lucilius, Varro and Cicero;^[3] the OLD thinks it was probably confused with the lamprey.^[2] Horace has a moray brought to table “swimming among shrimps”,^[2] Seneca tells of morays fattened on human blood,^[2] Pliny the Elder notes that they have neither fins nor gills,^[2] and Quintilian mentions one five feet long.^[2] By likeness Pliny uses it of a flaw in timber, a black streak running through citron-wood table tops.^[2][9]

Isidore says a woman's necklace of gold wire twisted into a winding chain was popularly called murena after its likeness to the fish,^[8] and medieval Latin keeps the sense “lady's necklace”.^[10][6] Medieval British writers usually mean the lamprey: Ælfric's Colloquy glosses it with Old English lampredan, and Henry of Huntingdon writes under the year 1135 that the king ate lampreys, which always disagreed with him and which he always loved.^[11] It lives on in French murène, Italian murena and Spanish morena;^[1] English moray came in the 1620s from Portuguese moreia.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it for the moray.^[2][6]
• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius mentions the fish.^[3][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace describes a moray served at table.^[2][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a black streak in timber.^[2][6]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore uses it for a woman's necklace.^[8][6]
• 1135 – Henry of Huntingdon writes of a king eating lampreys.^[11]
• 1620s – English borrows moray from Portuguese.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sea eel, the moray (probably confused with the lamprey); (Medieval Latin) usually the lamprey.^[2][9][11]
2. A black streak in timber, a flaw.^[2][9]
3. (Late and Medieval Latin) A woman's necklace.^[8][10]

Word family

• mūrēnula

Related words

• English moray

Usage notes

Medieval murena (also morina) “cattle plague, murrain” comes from a different source.^[10][6] Mūrēna was also a Roman cognomen, above all of Lucius Licinius Murena, consul in 62 BC, whom Cicero defended on a charge of electoral bribery;^[2][9] Köbler derives the name from the fish.^[6]

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 l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina (text of The Latin Library; book and paragraph numbers as there).
8. ^ a b c d Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
9. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com