mușca

Forms

mușca (first-person singular present mușc, third-person singular mușcă, subjunctive să muște, past participle mușcat), first conjugation^[1] The old form is mucica: „o năpârcă din căldură eși și mucică mânra lui” “a viper came out of the heat and bit his hand”.^[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain: DEX, MDA2 and the DLR call it of unknown origin.^[4][5][2] The proposals start from the old and dialect form mucica.^[6][1] For Tiktin and Capidan it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *muccicō, also continued in southern Italian dialects, though Tiktin doubts its link with Latin mūccus (“mucus, snot”).^[3][7] Pușcariu derived it from ⟨*mūcculāre⟩, and later from mucceus crossed with morsicō (“to bite”), the view the REW records; compare Sicilian muzzicari and Neapolitan muzzecà.^[6][8][1]

Ciorănescu also weighs *muticō, from mūtiō (“to mutter”), parallel to mussō behind Spanish amusgar: the growl of an animal before it bites.^[6][1] The verb exists in all four branches: Aromanian mushcu, Megleno-Romanian mucicu and Istro-Romanian mucicu.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), with the old form mucică “bit” in the account of the viper that bit a man's hand.^[5][2][3]

Semantic evolution

The Palia de la Orăștie of 1581 has the modern form mușca, of a snake biting a horse's heel.^[2] Besides biting with the teeth the verb covers the sting of insects, the bite of the cold, a fish taking the bait, and figuratively biting words.^[4][5][9]

Several idioms rest on it: a-și mușca mâinile “to bite one's hands”, to regret bitterly, a-și mușca buzele “to bite one's lips”, to hold back a feeling, and a mușca țărâna “to bite the dust”.^[4][5] The derivative remușcare “remorse” was formed after French remords.^[6] In thieves' slang it means “to steal”.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – mucică “bit” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[5][2]
• 1581 – va mușca “will bite” in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[2]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic words for “to bite”.^[11]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses it of the serpents in Numbers.^[12]
• 1839 – of a dog that bit a boy, in a newspaper.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bite: to sink one's teeth into something and press hard, hurting, wounding or tearing it.^[4][1]
2. (of insects) To sting;^[4][13] (figurative) of cold, hunger and the like, to cause a painful sensation.^[4][13]
3. To bite off a piece of food: a mușcat din măr “he bit into the apple”.^[4]
4. (of fish) To take the bait.^[5]
5. (figurative) To attack with spiteful or sarcastic words.^[4][9]

Word family

• mușcător
• mușcătură
• remușcare

Related words

• murseca
• Aromanian mushcu

Usage notes

In the Banat the second person singular present is mușchi and the subjunctive să mușche (standard muști, să muște).^[3] MDA2 records a regional variant mușica.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mușca
3. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mușca
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 685
5. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 85
6. ^ a b c d e Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. mușca
7. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 719
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5707
9. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 414
10. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. mușca
11. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. mușca
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Numerile 21:6
13. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. mușca