myxa

Forms

myxa f (genitive myxae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μύξα (múxa).^[2][3][1][4] Köbler connects the Greek word with the one for “mucus” and with μύξον (múxon, “plum tree”), and cautiously with Proto-Indo-European *meug- (“slippery, slimy”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder names it among the trees peculiar to Syria, a kind of plum that was already familiar in Italy, and says that wine was made from it in Egypt.^[6][2][5]

Semantic evolution

In Pliny it is the tree, the sebesten, and also its fruit;^[2][6] Palladius gives directions for raising it from stones.^[7] Martial uses it for something else, the nozzle of an oil lamp that holds the wick: his lamp boasts totque geram myxas, una lucerna vocor, “though I carry so many nozzles, I am called one lamp”.^[3][7]

The TLL notes that manuscripts often spell it with ⟨mi-⟩, and that some late writers, among them Theodorus Priscianus and Caelius Aurelianus, used a popular form nixa.^[6]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the tree and its fruit.^[6][5]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it for the nozzle of a lamp.^[3][5]
• end of 4th/beginning of 5th century AD – Palladius on sowing it from stones.^[7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sebesten, a tree bearing plum-like fruit; also its fruit.^[2][3][7]
2. The nozzle of a lamp, where the wick burns.^[3][7]

Usage notes

Isidore of Seville reports that some called the tree myxa from the abundance of fruit it puts out.^[6][8] The fruit itself was called myxum.^[7][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).