muscă

Forms

muscă f (plural muște)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin musca (“fly”), a word inherited by the whole Romance family.^[2][3][4][1] De Vaan relates the Latin word to Ancient Greek μυῖα (muîa, “fly”), Old Church Slavonic моуха (muxa) and Albanian mizë; he thinks the root may imitate the humming of flies and gnats.^[5] Wiktionary gives the root as Proto-Indo-European *mus- (“fly”).^[1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian muscã, Megleno-Romanian muscă and Istro-Romanian mușke.^[2][6][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian mosca, French mouche, Occitan mosca, Catalan mosca, Spanish mosca and Portuguese mosca.^[2][7]

Ciorănescu lists the adjective muscură “sheep with black spots on the head” among the derivatives.^[2] Giuglea traced it to a Latin musculus, which Ciorănescu finds unlikely.^[2] Through Capidan he also sees the source of Bulgarian мускур (muskur).^[2] The Bulgarian etymological dictionary calls the Bulgarian word unclear, but compares the Romanian word for a goat with spots around the muzzle.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The plural muște is first found in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, at Psalms 77:50 and 104:30.^[9][10] MDA2 dates the word to the Psaltirea Scheiană of about 1573–1578, and Tiktin also cites that psalter.^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

Besides the house fly, the word names other flies and, in popular use, any small flying insect whose name is unknown.^[4] In old and folk usage it also meant the bee, a sense Tiktin records especially among beekeepers.^[4][11] Folk names of species are formed with it: musca calului “horse fly”, musca bețivă “vinegar fly” and musca cireșelor “cherry fly”.^[11][4]

Other senses came from the likeness of a small dark spot: a tuft of hair left under the lower lip, the darkened hollow in a horse's tooth by which its age is judged, and the black centre of a shooting target.^[4][2] In sport it names the lightest weight class in boxing and wrestling, the flyweight.^[4][12]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – the plural muște in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[9]
• c. 1573-1578 – muscă in the Psaltirea Scheiană, MDA2's first record.^[3][11]
• 1642 – „ca musca la dulceața mieriei” “like the fly to the sweetness of honey”, in a text of Gaster's chrestomathy.^[13]
• 1664 – the lexicon Lex.Pet. uses muscă to gloss the Slavonic word for fly.^[14]
• 1688 – muscă câinească “dog fly” in the Bucharest Bible.^[15][11]
• 1825 – muscă in the Lexicon de la Buda, glossed with Latin musca and Hungarian légy.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fly: an insect with one pair of wings and mouthparts for sucking, especially the house fly (Musca domestica); in popular use any small flying insect.^[4][1]
2. (dated, popular) A bee.^[4][2]
3. A small tuft of hair grown under the lower lip; also a very small moustache.^[4]
4. (regional) The darkened hollow on a horse's tooth that shows its age.^[4][2]
5. The black spot at the centre of a shooting target; in the plural, hits in the centre.^[4]
6. (sports) flyweight, the lightest weight class in boxing and wrestling.^[4][12]

Word family

• muscar
• muscărie
• musculiță
• muscoi

Related words

• Aromanian muscã
• Latin musca

Usage notes

Common phrases: a fi cu musca pe căciulă “to have a guilty conscience”, să se audă musca “so quiet you could hear a fly”, a muri ca muștele “to die like flies” and a cădea ca musca-n lapte “to turn up at the worst moment”.^[4][11] Scriban tells a folk anecdote behind the first phrase: a thief gave himself away by brushing an imagined fly from his cap.^[17]

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 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. muscă
3. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 82
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 684
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 199
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5766
8. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 4, 340
9. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 77:50
10. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 104:30
11. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. muscă
12. ^ a b Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 369
13. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. muscă
14. ^ 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. muscă
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ex 8:21
16. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 408
17. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 843