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What are the etymological roots of the adverb emuncte ?

David
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Ēmunctē is the adverbial form of the past passive participle ēmunctus, -a, -um, from the verb ēmungere, meaning "to wipe mucus from one's nose."

The initial e- is the prefix "ex", which is where the verb gets the ablative sense ("to wipe from).

An original *mungere does not appear in extant Latin, and perhaps fell out of popularity compared to emungere.

Mungere in turn comes ultimately from the PIE *(s)mu-n-k- "to brush off."

The verb is probably (but not certainly) related to the Latun mucus. The -n- is a present nasal infix. De Vaan notes that mucus could also have come from a separate word for moisture:

Latin. mūcus would have to be an old derivative of the same root [as mungere]; but it can also belong to the IE words for 'moist', 'moor': MIr. mocht 'weak' < /**muk-to-*; OIc. mjúkr, Latv. mukls 'marshy'.

As far as the meaning goes, while the more literal definition of emunctus is "wiped", it can take on figurative meanings as well. If someone has a wiped nose (i.e. clean nose), they can discern smells better, i.e. have more acute senses. Over time that gave rise to the more general "fine, delicate" sense provided in Lewis and Short or "having delicate or refined tastes" provided by Glare.

cmw
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  • So my confusion is actually associated with the discrepancy between the adverbial definition (finely, subtly) as compared to your response. I should have been more specific when posing what appeared an obvious anachronism. Can you shed some further light on this ? Thank you by the way for your very prompt response. I’m new to the forum but already feeling greatly pleased by the experience. – David Apr 28 '22 at 03:37
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    @David Updated the response accordingly. Can you add all that to the question body? – cmw Apr 28 '22 at 12:19
  • Thank you for your insights !! – David Apr 28 '22 at 16:02
  • @David If this question solves your query, make sure to click the check mark to mark it solved. Let me know if you have any questions on how to do that, and welcome to Latin StackExchange. – cmw Apr 30 '22 at 17:46