"M" Word Origins

mustache

French

From French moustache, from Italian mostaccio, ultimately from Greek mystax, meaning 'upper lip' or the hair on it.

mustachio

Origin

Borrowed from the Italian dialectal mustaccio (from Neapolitan) or mustacchio, ultimately from Ancient Greek.

Mustafa

Arabic

From Arabic مُصْطَفَى (muṣṭafā, "the chosen one").

mustang

Spanish

Borrowed from Mexican Spanish mestengo, meaning a feral or stray animal.

mustard

Old French

From Old French moustarde, related to "must" (unfermented grape juice), which was originally mixed with ground mustard seed to make a paste.

muster

Latin

From Old French mostrer/moustrer, meaning "to show," from Latin monstrare — the same root as "monster" and "demonstrate."

musty

Old French

Origin uncertain, likely linked to Old French forms meaning "damp" or "moist," blended over time with the word "must" (unfermented grape juice).

mutable

Origin

From Middle English mutable, from Old French mutable, from Latin mutabilis (“liable to change”). By surface analysis, muta- + -able.

mutagen

Latin

Built from muta- (relating to mutation) and -gen ("producing"), ultimately from Greek roots meaning "birth" or "origin."

mutant

Latin

From Latin mutans, "changing," the present participle of the verb mutare, "to change."

mutate

Latin · 1700

First recorded in the late 18th century as a back-formation from "mutation," ultimately from Latin mutare, "to change."

mutation

Latin

From Latin mutatio, "a changing," via Old French mutacion.

mute

Latin

From Anglo-Norman muet, ultimately reshaped to match Latin mutus, meaning "silent" or "dumb."

mutha

Origin

Dialectal variant of mother * Geordie dialect variant of mother. * Ebonics variant of mother.

mutilate

Latin

From Latin mutilatus, the past participle of mutilare, "to maim," from mutilus, "maimed."

mutilation

Latin

From Latin mutilatio, related to French mutilation.

mutineer

Origin

From French mutinier.

mutiny

Middle French

From Middle French mutiner, related to words for rebellion and unrest.

mutt

Origin

A shortening of "muttonhead."

mutter

Middle English

From Middle English muteren, an imitative word echoing the sound of low, murmured speech.

mutton

Old French

From Old French mouton ("sheep"), tracing back to a Gaulish word for a ram or wether — the same root that gives French "mouton" today.

muttonhead

Origin

From mutton + head.

muttonheaded

Origin

From mutton + headed.

muttonmonger

Origin

From mutton + monger.

mutual

Latin

Borrowed via Middle French from Latin mutuus, meaning "reciprocal" or "borrowed" — it displaced an older native English word for the same idea.

mutual fund

English

From mutual, in the sense of jointly owned by its members, plus fund.

mutualism

Origin

From mutual + -ism. Compare French mutualisme and Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish mutualismo.

mutualist

Origin

From mutual + -ist.

muumuu

Origin

Borrowed from Hawaiian muʻumuʻu.

muy

Spanish

Borrowed directly from Spanish muy, meaning "very."

Muzak

Origin · 1930

Originally the brand name Muzak, coined in the 1930s by blending "music" with the "-ak" ending of Kodak, a famous brand at the time.

muzzle

Late Latin

From Old French musel/museau, ultimately from Late Latin mūsus ("snout") — the same root that gives French museau today.

muzzy

Origin

Likely a shortened form related to "moustache," though its modern sense of "foggy-headed" developed independently.

MVP

English

An initialism of most valuable player in the sporting sense, and of minimum viable product in the business sense.

mwah

Origin

An onomatopoeia imitating the sound made when kissing.

my

Old English

From Old English mīn ("my, mine"), an ancient possessive form shared with many other Germanic languages, such as German mein and Dutch mijn.

my bad

Origin

Pick-up basketball slang popularized (but not first coined) by Manute Bol, a basketball player of Sudanese origin playing with the Golden State Warriors, and subsequently adopted by teammates. Compare semantics with Russian оплошность (oplošnostʹ, “mistake, bad”), from о- (o-) + плох (plox, “bad”).

MYA

Origin

A modern phonetic spelling of Maia or Maya.

Myanmar

Origin

From the Burmese name for the country's main ethnic group; the official English name Myanmar was adopted alongside the older name Burma.

Myer

German

As an English surname, often traced to an old word for a physician or to a topographic term for marshland; as a German surname, it is an anglicized form of Meyer or Mayer.

Myers

German

As an Irish surname it anglicizes Ó Meidhir; as an English surname it is a variant of Myer; as a Dutch or German surname it anglicizes Meyers or Mayers.

Mykonos

Ancient Greek

From the Ancient Greek name Mykonos.

myna

Origin

Borrowed from Hindi मैना (mainā) / Urdu مینا (mainā), from Sanskrit मदन (madana).

myocardiopathy

Origin

From myo- + cardiopathy.

myocardium

Origin

From New Latin myocardium, from Ancient Greek μῦς (mûs, “muscle”) + καρδίᾱ (kardíā, “heart”).

myology

Origin

From myo- + -logy.

myopia

Origin

Borrowed from Ancient Greek μυωπία (muōpía, “shortsightedness”), from μύω (múō, “to shut, close”) + ὤψ (ṓps, “eye”) + -ία (-ía).

myopic

Greek

From Greek myops 'short-sighted', from myein 'to shut' and ops 'eye', describing the habit of narrowing the eyes to see distant things.