musk

英文词源

musk

musk: [14] Like the substance musk itself, the name musk came to Europe from the East. Its ultimate ancestor appears to have been Sanskrit muska ‘scrotum, testicle’. This meant literally ‘little mouse’ (it was a diminutive form of Sanskrit mūs ‘mouse’), and its metaphorical reapplication was due to a supposed similarity in shape between mice and testicles (a parallel inspiration gave rise to English muscle and mussel).

The gland from which the male musk deer secretes musk was held to resemble a scrotum, and so Persian took the Sanskrit word for ‘scrotum’ over, as mushk, and used it for ‘musk’. It reached English via late Latin muscus. The -meg of English nutmeg comes ultimately from Latin muscus, and other English relatives include muscat [16], the name of a grape that supposedly smells of musk, and its derivative muscatel [14].
=> mouse, muscatel, muscle, mussel, nutmeg

musk (n.)

late 14c., from Old French musc (13c.) and directly from Late Latin muscus, from Late Greek moskhos, from Persian mushk, from Sanskrit muska-s "testicle," from mus "mouse" (so called, presumably, for resemblance; see muscle). The deer gland was thought to resemble a scrotum. German has moschos, from a Medieval Latin form of the Late Greek word. Spanish has almizcle, from Arabic al misk "the musk," from Persian. Applied to various plants and animals of similar smell (such as musk-ox, 1744).