Etymologically
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mutilus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈmʊ.tɪ.ɫʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈmuː.ti.lus][1]

Forms

mutilus (feminine mutila, neuter mutilum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.[2] De Vaan and the OLD compare Irish mut (“short”),[2][3] and de Vaan also Scottish Gaelic mutach (“short”), both from a form *mutt-.[2] Köbler, after Pokorny, sets up Proto-Indo-European *mutos (“docked”).[4] Wiktionary compares muticus (“docked”) and Ancient Greek μίτυλος (mítulos, “hornless”),[1] a Greek word that Lewis & Short and Georges also give.[5][6] The TLL equates it with the personal name Oscan Mutil.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Varro,[2] who speaks of a hornless ox (mutilum bovem).[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Caesar says that elks have stunted horns (mutilae sunt cornibus),[3][8] and Horace turns the sense into a joke: “do you threaten like this, even with your horn cut off?” (sic mutilus minitaris?).[9][6] Cicero uses it of speech, of clipped and broken phrases (mutila loqui).[5][8]

It was said of anything with a part missing: Apuleius has a cot short of one leg (grabatulus uno pede mutilus),[5][9] Gellius uses it of letters, and the Theodosian Code of men who had cut off a finger to escape military service.[5][6] It survives in mutilo, and Conte compares mozzo.[9]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of a hornless ox.[3][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of clipped phrases.[5][4]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of elks with stunted horns.[3][4]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace uses it jokingly of a man with a horn cut off.[9][4]
  • c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of a cot missing a leg.[5][4]
  • 438 AD – The Theodosian Code uses it of men who had cut off a finger.[5][4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Having a part broken off or missing; mutilated, truncated.[3][5]
  2. (of animals) Hornless or with stunted horns.[3][5]
  3. (of speech) Clipped, curtailed.[5][6]

Word family

  • English mutilate

Usage notes

Some manuscripts of Cato (De agri cultura 158) have a separate mūtilus, a shellfish, for which the right spelling is mītulus.[8][6] Lewis & Short give truncus, curtus and mancus as near-synonyms.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  7. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  9. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier