GRAPH-WIDE SEARCH
MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
014
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact headword
mouse
The inherited English name of the small rodent, continued from Old English mūs and the reconstructed Indo-European *mūs- family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
muscle
A body tissue or organ whose English name descends through French from Latin musculus, a diminutive of mūs “mouse.”
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
mussel
A bivalve mollusk whose English history runs through Middle English muscle and Old English muscelle into the same Latin mouse family as muscle.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
μυς
The Modern Greek anatomical word for muscle, continued from Ancient Greek μῦς, which could name both a mouse and a body muscle.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗029
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
mouse
a small rodent; later many transferred senses
- DATE
- before the 12th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*mūs
mouse
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic prehistory
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*mūs-
mouse; also the family behind specialized muscle words
- DATE
- Proto-Indo-European prehistory
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 4
Middle English / Indo-European
mous
mouse
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
musculus
little mouse; muscle; also a mussel name
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Latin / Indo-European
mūs
mouse
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Old English / Indo-European
mūs
mouse
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Modern Greek / Indo-European
μυς
mysa body muscle; in learned use, also a mouse
- DATE
- Modern Greek
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Ancient Greek / Indo-European
μῦς
mŷsmouse; also a muscle of the body
- DATE
- Ancient Greek literary record
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
0311
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 7
resolvedestablishedexact word
Was English mouse borrowed from Latin mūs?
No. Old English mūs continues a Germanic branch; Latin mūs is a cognate parallel branch.
resolvedprobableexact word
How secure is Proto-Indo-European *mūs-?
The cross-branch mouse word is reconstructed as PIE *mūs-, while any deeper ancestor remains outside the reviewed evidence.
openprobableposition text
What exactly resembled a mouse?
The naming may refer to the shape of a muscle, a tendon, or movement visible beneath the skin; the reviewed sources do not select one mechanism as secure.
openproposedposition text
Why was a shellfish named through the mouse family?
The exact resemblance that carried the mouse-derived Latin word to a mussel is not securely identified in the reviewed record.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Is musculus really a “little mouse”?
Latin musculus is morphologically the diminutive of mūs “mouse.”
resolvedestablishedposition text
Do mussel and muscle share the Latin mouse family?
The English words have distinct immediate histories but converge in the Latin musculus / mūscula family derived from mūs.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Are Greek mouse and muscle merely accidental homonyms?
The reviewed Liddell–Scott entry treats μῦς as one lexical entry with both rodent and body-muscle senses, and Modern Greek explicitly derives both learned senses from Ancient Greek.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 4
RANK 149GRADE Aexact ranked word
English mouse is not a Latin loan.
English mouse follows its inherited Germanic line while Latin mūs is a cognate branch. Their resemblance reflects common ancestry, not a direct Latin-to-English borrowing.
RANK 88GRADE Aranked reveal
Mussel and muscle were once spelling twins.
Middle English could spell the shellfish muscle. The shellfish and anatomical words ultimately belong to Latin’s mouse-derived musculus family, though the naming resemblance itself is not fully recoverable.
RANK 168GRADE Acontrarian claim
In Greek, a muscle is still a mouse.
Ancient Greek μῦς named both the rodent and a body muscle. Modern Greek μυς preserves the anatomical branch and records the mouse sense as learned vocabulary.
RANK 172GRADE Acontrarian claim
A muscle was a “little mouse.”
Latin musculus is a diminutive of mūs “mouse.” The derivation is secure; the exact resemblance mechanism remains qualified.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.