Talk:mali

RFV discussion: October 2015–February 2016

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mali

Rfv-sense: pure MDMA. Some American misspelling of molly, I guess? Ƿidsiþ 09:54, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

• RFV failed. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 13:36, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Etymology (money sense)

@Sgconlaw “Borrowed from Xhosa imali, Zulu imali (“money”), both ultimately from English money.”

Xhosa (which has a reference) and Zulu entries: “From Swahili mali, ultimately from Arabic مال (māl)”; i.e., unrelated to English. J3133 (talk) 10:17, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@J3133: OED disagrees, though, and in that dictionary this is a new entry first published June 2000 (so not an old entry that has yet to be reviewed). Do you have a third-party source indicating an Arabic origin? Perhaps raise the matter at the Etymology Scriptorium. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Etymology 3 (plural sense)

@J3133: we don't generally place quotations at non-lemmas such as plural forms. I think these should be transferred to the lemma malus. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw: We do place quotations at irregular and rare plural forms (e.g., statūs), not generally. J3133 (talk) 13:25, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@J3133: right. I wonder if we have a written policy on this? All I know is that I was previously told by a more experienced editor that we don't put quotations at non-lemma entries which are inflections of verbs and plurals of nouns. We do, though, put them at alternative forms and spellings as these can differ to some extent from the lemmas. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:55, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw It is not from Latin mālī because in Latin (etymology 1) it is only an adjective; the plural is formed in English. J3133 (talk) 15:45, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@J3133: my understanding is that in Latin even adjectives have plural forms – see the declension table at malus. It seems clear that the English plural was adapted from such a Latin form; the plural formed in the ordinary English way is maluses. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:31, 10 September 2021 (UTC)