mosca

Forms

mosca f (plural moscas)^[1] Houaiss records the 15th-century spelling mosqua.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin musca (“fly”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mosca in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1]

The same Latin word is Galician mosca, Spanish mosca, Catalan mosca, Occitan mosca, French mouche, Italian mosca and Romanian muscă.^[4][5][1]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *musko- and compares μυῖα (muîa, “fly”), musė, моуха (muxa) and mucka; he considers the root quite possibly an imitation of the humming of the insect.^[6] Wiktionary gives the root as *mus-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] A cantiga d'escarnho of Afonso X compares its targets to oxen quando as moscas los vẽẽ coitar “when the flies come to torment them”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) distinguishes the fly that bites cattle, the gadfly.^[8] Bluteau (1712–1728) describes the insect as “as importunate as it is well known”.^[9] Morais (1813) records mosca de freixo for the blister beetle, the strong stitches tailors put at the end of a seam, and the spiral notch at the tip of a spindle.^[10] Silva Bastos (1912) has the tuft of beard under the lower lip, the black beauty spot and cavalo mosca “a small horse”.^[11] The DLP dates the fashion of the beauty spot to the 16th and 17th centuries and the first half of the 18th.^[12]

The word also came to mean the black centre of a target and, applied to people, an importunate person, a spy or informer, and, in Brazil, someone who frequents bars without spending, a busybody, or an onlooker at a game.^[2][12][13] In Portugal it is informal for money and for a small glass of brandy.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, in a cantiga of Afonso X.^[2][3][7]
• 15th century – the spelling mosqua.^[2]
• c. 1465 – the Vida de São João Clímaco (copied 1430–1500) writes mosca.^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses mosca with Latin musca.^[16]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists the fly that bites cattle.^[8]
• 1813 – Morais records the tailors' stitch and mosca de freixo.^[10]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the tuft of beard and the beauty spot.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (entomology) A fly: any of the many two-winged insects of which the housefly is the type.^{[2][17][12][1]}
2. (figurative) A tiresome, importunate person.^[2][17][1]
3. The black centre of a target, the bullseye.^[2][18][1]
4. A small tuft of beard left under the lower lip, a soul patch.^[2][17][1]
5. A small black beauty spot painted or stuck on the face, formerly worn by women.^[2][12]
6. (sewing) A strong finishing stitch, often in the shape of a triangle or lozenge.^[2][14]
7. (viticulture) A twisted rod tied to the stake that props a vine.^[2][19]
8. (Portugal, informal) Money; a small glass of brandy served in cafés.^[2][14]
9. (masculine or feminine) A spy or informer.^[2][12]
10. (Brazil, informal) Someone who sits in bars spending little; an onlooker who watches a game without playing.^[2][13]

Word family

• moscar
• mosquedo
• mosqueiro
• mosquinha
• moscão
• moscaria
• mata-moscas
• papa-moscas
• peso-mosca
• mosca-varejeira
• mosca-das-frutas

Related words

• mosquito
• muscívoro
• mosquete
• Latin musca
• Galician mosca

Usage notes

Common phrases are acertar na mosca “to hit the mark”, às moscas “deserted, with no customers” and, in Brazil, comer mosca “to miss the point, be fooled” and com a mosca azul “puffed up with pride or ambition”.^[2][18] The proverb em boca fechada não entra mosca “no fly gets into a closed mouth” advises silence.^[1]

Houaiss and Aurélio also record mosca as a boxing term, short for peso-mosca “flyweight”, both for the category and for a boxer in it.^[2][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mosca
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mosca
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. mosca
8. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mosca
9. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mosca
10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 321
11. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. mosca
12. ^ a b c d e Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. mosca
13. ^ a b Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. mosca
14. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6331
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mosca
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mosca
17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mosca
18. ^ a b Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. mosca
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mosca