mucoare

Forms

mucoare f (plural mucori)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mucor (“mould, mustiness”), continued from its accusative mūcōrem.^{[2][3][1][4][5]} The Latin noun is formed on mūceō (“to be mouldy”) with the suffix -or.^[1][6]

Candrea and Densusianu record Aromanian mucoare with the sense “mucosity”.^[4] Outside Romanian the Latin word survives in Sardinian mugore (Logudorese) and Asturian mugor “dirt”, among a few other dialect forms.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to Ion Budai-Deleanu's Romanian–German lexicon of 1818, and DLR cites that lexicon for the senses “mould” and “mucus”.^[3][2] Candrea and Densusianu knew the word from the Hațeg region, with the sense “mould”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin senses “mould” and “mucous substance” both live on in the regional word.^[3][6] From “mucus” come the plural for the mucous matter in the afterbirth of animals before they give birth, and the name of a disease of horses and cattle that DLR compares with răpciugă “glanders”; the REW glosses the Romanian word with that disease alone.^[2][5] In a few places it is also a scornful name for a flighty young man, like mucos.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1818 – first record, in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon, “mould” and “mucus”.^[3][2]
• 1905 – Pușcariu's etymological dictionary names a disease of horses and cattle with it.^[2]
• 1915 – the sense “mould” in Densusianu's glossary of the Hațeg region.^[2]
• 1959 – a scornful name for a flighty young man, recorded in the journal Limba română.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) mould, mustiness.^[3][2][1]
2. (regional) mucus, snot; in the plural, the mucous matter in the afterbirth of animals before they give birth.^[3][2]
3. (regional) A disease of horses and cattle, compare răpciugă “glanders”.^[3][2][5]
4. (regional, derogatory) A flighty young man.^[3][2]

Related words

• muc
• mucos
• Latin mucor

Usage notes

Wiktionary marks the word as rare and regional, from Transylvania.^[1] Its plural is mucori.^[3][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mucoare
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 70
4. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. mucoare
5. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5712
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press