英文词源
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Word of Random
- muscle
- muscle: [16] Ultimately, muscle and mussel [OE] are the same word, and both owe their origin to a supposed resemblance to a mouse. They go back to Latin mūsculus, literally ‘little mouse’, a diminutive form of mūs ‘mouse’, which was applied to the shellfish because of a similarity in shape and colour, and to ‘muscle’ because the shape and movement of certain muscles beneath the skin, such as the biceps, reminded people of a mouse.
Latin mūsculus ‘mussel’ was borrowed into Old English as muscle or muxle; the -ssspelling began to emerge in the 15th century, inspired by Middle Low German mussel (which came from *muscula, a Vulgar Latin feminization of Latin mūsculus and source of French moule ‘mussel’) and reinforced in the 16th century by the introduction via Old French of muscle for ‘muscle’.
The notion of resemblance to a mouse also lies behind English musk.
=> mouse, mussel
