muscus

Forms

mūscus m (genitive mūscī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *mews-,^[1][2] cognate with Old High German mos, English moss and Lithuanian musaĩ.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found first in Cato.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It means moss or a similar growth:^[3] Horace has rocks coated with moss, and Ovid soft moss.^[4]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it.^[2][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace has rocks coated with moss.^[4][2]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid writes of soft moss.^[4][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Moss or a similar growth.^[3][4]

Word family

• mūscōsus

Usage notes

A separate Late Latin muscus, “musk”, is borrowed from Ancient Greek μόσχος (móskhos), a word the TLL calls of Asian origin; it is found first in Jerome.^[5][4][2] Medieval Latin also used it of muscatel wine.^[6] English musk came partly from it, and muscat from a Vulgar Latin derivative.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
3. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com