Etymon #42
Then knifes out
The word entered English from Latin in the early fourteenth century. John Wycliffe used it in his 1384 Bible translation, the first complete rendering of the Bible into English, to name a religious truth revealed only by God. Its earlier life was in ancient Greek, where it named something altogether different.
From ancient Greek into Latin, from Latin into Old French, and from Old French into English, the word's meaning shifted at every stage. In ancient Greek it named secret religious rites witnessed only by the initiated. In Latin it became a divine truth revealed through Christ. In Old French it became the word for a Christian sacrament. By the time it reached Middle English, the religious sense had broadened. Behind them all lay a single Greek verb.
The Greek verb at the root meant to close. It described the closing of lips against speech and the closing of eyes against sight. Both were required of those who entered the sacred rites performed at Eleusis in ancient Greece. You sealed your lips before you went in and you closed your eyes until you were told to open them.
MUTE and MUTTER share the same ancient root as this word. MUTE came from Latin mutus 'silent, speechless', naming the condition of having no voice at all. MUTTER came from the same root, naming the sound made with compressed lips, words escaping indistinctly. Both trace back to the same ancient root as this word, the one that begins in silence.
