mutunium

Latin

Alternative forms

• mutūnius
• muthūnium
• muttōnium
• mutīnium

Etymology

Probably from mūtō (“penis”) +‎ -ium; compare pecūlium (used with a sexual sense in Plautus and Petronius). The derived adjective mutūniātus scans with a short first syllable; Weiss (1996) proposes that this is a case of a geminate being shortened after an unaccented vowel, as seen in sacellus for saccellus (compare mamilla from mamma). It is not known why the vowel in the second syllable appears as ū rather than as ō. (The spelling muttōnium is attested in Lucilius.) Weiss proposes the following origin for forms with ū in this family of words: initially, the root was combined with the suffix -īnus, forming an adjective mū̆tīnus. After becoming used as the name of a god, Mutunus Tutunus, the form Mū̆tīnus was altered to Mū̆tūnus under the influence of other deity names ending in -ūnus, such as Neptūnus and Portūnus, and then the ū in the second syllable of Mū̆tūnus served as the basis of ū in the second syllable of forms like mū̆tūnium and mutūniātus.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /muˈtuː.ni.um/, [mʊˈt̪uːniʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /muˈtu.ni.um/, [muˈt̪uːnium]

Noun

mutūnium n (genitive mutūniī or mutūnī); second declension

1. (vulgar) penis
   • c. 1st century CE, Carmina Priapea , (uncertain meter):

     Tūtēlam pōmārī, dīlĭgēns Prĭāpĕ, făcĭtō:
     rū̆brī̆cātō fūrĭbus mĭnārĕ mutinio.

     Careful Priapus, keep watch of the orchard:
     threaten thieves with red(-painted) penis.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	mutūnium	mutūnia
Genitive	mutūniī mutūnī1	mutūniōrum
Dative	mutūniō	mutūniīs
Accusative	mutūnium	mutūnia
Ablative	mutūniō	mutūniīs
Vocative	mutūnium	mutūnia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Derived terms

• mutūniātus

Further reading

• “mūtōnium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• mūtōnium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “mutūnium” in volume 8, column 1731, line 16 in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present
• “? mutinium” in volume 8, column 1722, line 7 in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present