Etymologically
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remugio

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Pronunciation

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

Forms

remūgiō (present infinitive remūgīre); fourth conjugation, no passive, no perfect or supine stems[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- (“back, again”) + mūgiō (“to low, bellow”).[2][1][3] De Vaan calls mūgiō an imitation of a cow's lowing and traces it to Proto-Italic *mūg- and Proto-Indo-European *mū̆g-, cognate with Ancient Greek μυκάομαι (mukáomai, “to low, bellow”) and Lithuanian mū̃kti (“to bellow”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Georges records it in Catullus, of a light drum that booms back.[5] Virgil uses it of a voice that resounds, echoed by the woods: vox adsensu nemorum ingeminata remugit.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic word.[6] Ovid has the literal sense, to moo in reply: ad mea verba remugis, “you answer my words with lowing”.[2][6] More often it means to answer with a deep, booming sound, as the Sibyl does from her cave in Virgil,[6][7] or to resound, usually with an ablative: Virgil's whole grove booms with groans, Horace's Ionian gulf with the south wind, and in Seneca's tragedies a grove with barking.[6][5][8] Statius still uses it of a grove that resounds with another warrior.[2]

Timeline

  • 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus, of a drum.[5][9]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil, of a voice and of woods that resound.[2][9]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace, of the sea booming with the wind.[6][9]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, “to moo in reply”.[2][9]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius, of a grove.[2][9]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To moo or bellow in reply; to answer with a deep, booming sound.[2][6][7]
  2. Of places, usually with an ablative, to resound, re-echo; of a deep sound, to reverberate.[2][6]

Usage notes

Ancient commentators distinguished it from the simple verb: Claudius Donatus says that mugit is said of the place where the lowing starts, remugit of what is struck by another's lowing and gives the sound back, and Servius explains Virgil's reboant with resultant and remugiunt.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  8. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  9. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de