murcus
Meaning
- masculinerareshortened, mutilated
murcus curtus
8–9th C. CE, Glossarium Amplonianum primum in Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum (volume V), Georg Goetz, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig 1888, page 371, line 19 - masculinerarea coward, who, to escape military service, cuts off his thumb
Nec eōrum aliquandō quisquam ut in Italiā mūnus Mārtium pertimēscēns pollicem sibi praecidit, quōs locāliter murcōs appellant.
380 CE – 392 CE, Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 15.12.3
Declension
| form | singular | plural |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | murcus | murcī |
| genitive | murcī | murcōrum |
| dative | murcō | murcīs |
| accusative | murcum | murcōs |
| ablative | murcō | murcīs |
| vocative | murce | murcī |
Origins
Uncertain. The term is perhaps connected with marceō (“to be soaked”), itself from Proto-Indo-European *merk-. However, according to the linguist Nicholas Zair, it is most likely that the Latin verb showcases a development of Proto-Indo-European *mr̥k- to Proto-Italic *mork-, which then unrounded to *ma-. If this is accepted, then—according to Zair—the form murcus cannot be directly derived from Proto-Indo-European *mr̥k-o- or *mork-o-, and must instead have been borrowed from some other Indo-European substrate language where the unrounding never took place. De Vaan, however, suggests that a zero-grade Proto-Indo-European form *mr̥k- would have instead vocalized as Proto-Italic *mark-, whence marceō, whereas the o-grade would have regularly produced forms such as murcidus. Alternatively, the term may have emerged as back-formation from murcidus. The Hesychius hapax Ancient Greek μύρκος (múrkos), μυρικᾶς (murikâs, “mute, dumb”), transmitted as being used in Syracuse, is deemed by Oikonomos, Ernout/Meillet and Beekes borrowed from Latin.