mulier
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
mulier (plural muliers)
- (law, historical) Lawful issue born in wedlock, in distinction from an elder brother born of the same parents before their marriage.
- 1908, Alfred John Horwood, Luke Owen Pike, Year books of the reign of King Edward the Third: Volume 15:
- Or suppose an inquest were taken between us, and it were found that they are muliers, for which reason the voucher stood, and they came and pleaded the same exception to escape from warranting as heirs, then two inquests would be taken […]
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “mulier”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
Related terms[edit]
Anagrams[edit]
Latin[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-Italic *moljes, of uncertain origin; it has been proposed that it might derive from mollior, comparative of mollis (“soft, tender”), while others propose it might be akin to mulgere and therefore mean “the milk-giver”.
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Classical) IPA(key): /ˈmu.li.er/, [ˈmʊlʲiɛr]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈmu.li.er/, [ˈmuːlier]
Noun[edit]
mulier f (genitive mulieris); third declension
- a woman, female
- c. 161 BCE, Publius Terentius Afer, Phormio 5.9:
- mulier sapiēns es, Nausistrata.
- You are a wise woman, Nausistrata.
- mulier sapiēns es, Nausistrata.
- (by extension) a wife
- (figuratively) a coward, poltroon
- (Medieval Latin) a virgin adult
Usage notes[edit]
A mulier was a woman who was married in contrast with a virgo (“unmarried woman of a marriageable age”). Thus, if a noble young girl of age 12 got married, she would be called a mulier even though by today's standards, we would not call this girl a "woman". In contrast, if a common young woman of age 19 or 21 was still unmarried, she often was still called a virgo despite being much older than that young noble girl married at age 12.
If an older woman for whatever reason was not married off, she could be called a mulier too, so it is not a term used exclusively for married women.
Declension[edit]
Third-declension noun.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | mulier | mulierēs |
| Genitive | mulieris | mulierum |
| Dative | mulierī | mulieribus |
| Accusative | mulierem | mulierēs |
| Ablative | muliere | mulieribus |
| Vocative | mulier | mulierēs |
Derived terms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
- Balkan Romance:
- Dalmatian:
- Italo-Romance:
- Insular Romance:
- North Italian:
- Gallo-Romance:
- Occitano-Romance:
- Ibero-Romance:
- Borrowings:
- → English: mulier
References[edit]
- Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002), “mŭlier”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 6/3: Mobilis–Myxa, page 200
Further reading[edit]
- “mulier”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “mulier”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- mulier in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *mel-
- English terms borrowed from Latin
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- English 2-syllable words
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- en:Law
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- en:People
- Latin terms inherited from Proto-Italic
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- Medieval Latin
- la:Female people