musculus

Unadapted borrowing from Latin mūsculus (“a little mouse; a muscle”), diminutive of mūs (“a mouse”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌ.skjʊl.əs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌ.skjəl.əs/
• Homophone: musculous
• Rhymes: -ʌskjʊləs

musculus (plural musculi)

1. (anatomy) A muscle. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

• muscular
• musculous

• “musculus”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “musculus”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

From mūs (“a mouse”) +‎ -culus (diminutive suffix), literally “little mouse”. The “muscle” sense is a semantic loan from Ancient Greek μῦς (mûs, “mouse; muscle”).^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈmuːs.ku.lus/, [ˈmuːs̠kʊɫ̪ʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈmus.ku.lus/, [ˈmuskulus]

mūsculus m (genitive mūsculī); second declension

1. (literally) diminutive of mūs: a small mouse
2. (transferred sense)
   1. a companion of the whale
   2. a saltwater mussel
   3. (anatomy) a muscle
   4. (military) a shed, mantelet, shielding
   5. A kind of small sailing vessel.

This entry needs quotations to illustrate usage. If you come across any interesting, durably archived quotes then please add them!

Second-declension noun.

• *muscelliō (< *muscellus)
  • Galician: mexillón
  • Portuguese: mexilhão
  • → Spanish: mejillón
• mūsculāris
• mūsculōsus

• “musculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “musculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• musculus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• musculus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “musculus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “musculus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin