The origin of the word moon

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English mone, from Old English mōna (“moon”), from Proto-West Germanic *mānō, from Proto-Germanic *mēnô (“moon”), from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s (“moon, month”), probably from *meh₁- (“to measure”).

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /muːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /mun/
• Rhymes: -uːn

Proper noun[edit]

moon

2. (with «the», singular only) Alternative letter-case form of Moon (“the Earth’s only permanent natural satellite”).

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, H.L. Brækstad, transl., Folk and Fairy Tales, page 233:

     «I suppose I may have leave to do that!» Yes, she could do that, he said, but there was no road to that place; it lay east of the sun and west of the moon, and she could never find her way there.

Noun[edit]

moon (plural moons)

2. (colloquial, by extension of Moon) Any natural satellite of a planet.

   The stargazer observed the moons of Jupiter for over a year.

   That’s no moon, you idiot… it’s a space station!

3. (literary) A month, particularly a lunar month.

   • 1603, William Shakespeare, Othello:

     For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,
     Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
     Their dearest action in the tented field…

   • 1737, John Brickell, The natural history of North-Carolina, page 308-309:

     They number their age by Moons or Winters, and say a Woman or a Man is so many Moons old, and so they do with all memorable Actions in life, accounting it to be so many Moons or Winters since such or such a thing happened.

   • 1822, Thomas Love Peacock, Maid Marian, page 238:

     Many moons had waxed and waned when on the afternoon of a lovely summer day a lusty broad-boned knight was riding through the forest of Sherwood.

   • 2002, Russell Allen, «Incantations of the Apprentice», on Symphony X, The Odyssey.

     Through eerie reach of ancient woods / Where lumbering mists arise / I journey for nines moons of the year / To where a land of legend lies

   They stayed with their aunt and uncle for many moons.

4. A representation of the moon, usually as a crescent or as a circle with a face; a crescent-shaped shape, symbol, or object.

   The wizard costume was decorated with stars and moons.

5. A crescent-like outwork in a fortification.

   The moons surrounding the city walls were built in the sixteenth century.

6. The eighteenth trump/major arcana card of the Tarot.
7. (cartomancy) The thirty-second Lenormand card.
8. (card games) In hearts, the action of taking all the point cards in one hand.

Synonyms[edit]

• (Earth’s sole natural satellite): Moon
• (natural satellite of a planet): satellite
• (month): calendar month, lunar month, month
• See also Thesaurus:moon

Derived terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

• Sranan Tongo: mun
• Tok Pisin: mun
• Torres Strait Creole: mun

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

moon (third-person singular simple present moons, present participle mooning, simple past and past participle mooned)

1. (transitive, colloquial) To display one’s buttocks to, typically as a jest, insult, or protest.

   The hooligans mooned the riot police.

   Coordinate terms: flash, streak

   It was ill-advised of Sam to moon the photographer during the shoot.

2. (intransitive, colloquial) To gaze at lovingly or in adoration.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 164:

     Bradly stood bewitched, mooning at the moon. Betimes he bent in a grotesque posture and looked at it between his legs, which was to rid his mind of preconceived colour values by seeing them upside down.

3. (intransitive, colloquial) (usually followed by over or after) To fuss over something adoringly; to be infatuated with someone.

   Sarah mooned over Sam’s photograph for months.

   You’ve been mooning after her forever; why not just ask her out?

   • 2017 January 12, Jesse Hassenger, “A literal monster truck is far from the stupidest thing about Monster Trucks”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:

     On some level, the filmmakers behind Monster Trucks must have recognized the ill fit of Till playing a teenager, because they cast Jane Levy, a 27-year-old who can pass for younger but not a decade younger, as Meredith, a nerdy classmate of Tripp’s who moons over him as she insists on making an appointment to tutor him in biology.

4. To spend time idly, absent-mindedly.

   • 1898, Joseph Conrad, Youth:

     We were only three on board. The poor old skipper mooned in the cabin.

5. (transitive) To expose to the rays of the Moon.
6. (transitive) To adorn with moons or crescents.
7. (cryptocurrencies, of a coin or token) To rise in price rapidly or suddenly.

   It is impractical if a currency moons and plummets often.

   • 2019, Mark Grabowski, Cryptocurrencies: A Primer on Digital Money‎^[2], Routledge, →ISBN:

     I’ve followed several of the most popular crypto pundits on Twitter and discovered they constantly brag about their one big Hail Mary pick that mooned but neglect to mention – or delete – their numerous fumbles.

8. (card games) To shoot the moon.

Translations[edit]

[edit]

• month
• moonsick

See also[edit]

• lunar
• Moonie
• Selene

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

• Mono, OMON, mono, mono-, nomo-

Bavarian[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• mon, mònn

Etymology[edit]

From Middle High German man, from Old High German man, from Proto-Germanic *mann-. Cognate with German Mann, Dutch man, English man, Icelandic maður, Swedish man, Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌽𐌽𐌰 (manna).

Noun[edit]

moon

1. (Timau) man
2. (Timau) husband

References[edit]

• Patuzzi, Umberto, ed., (2013) Luserna / Lusérn: Le nostre parole / Ünsarne börtar / Unsere Wörter [Our Words], Luserna, Italy: Comitato unitario delle isole linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

Finnish[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈmoːn/, [ˈmo̞ːn]
• Rhymes: -oːn
• Syllabification^(key): moon

Contraction[edit]

moon

1. (dialectal, southern Ostrobothnia) Contraction of mä oon (“I’m”).

Anagrams[edit]

• mono, mono-

Manx[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /muːn/

Alternative forms[edit]

• mooin, mooyn

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old Irish mún.

Noun[edit]

moon m (genitive singular mooin, no plural)

1. verbal noun of moon
2. urine

Synonyms[edit]

• feayl

Derived terms[edit]

• mooynlagh m (“sewage”)

Etymology 2[edit]

From Old Irish múnaid (“makes water, pisses”).

Verb[edit]

moon (past voon, future independent moonee, verbal noun moon or mooney, past participle moonit)

1. (transitive, intransitive) urinate, micturate, pee

Mutation[edit]

Manx mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
moon	voon	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References[edit]

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “mún”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “múnaid”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

North Frisian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Frisian man, from Proto-Germanic *mann-, probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mon-.

Noun[edit]

moon m

1. (Mooring) man

Teop[edit]

Noun[edit]

moon

1. woman

References[edit]

• Ulrike Mosel, The Teop sketch grammar

It’s Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative emailThank you! You have been subscribed to WBUR Today.We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. You can try subscribing here or try again later.

Paul H. asks: Why doesn’t the moon have a cool name like the moons of other planets in our solar system?

Almost every planet in our solar system and their respective orbiting moons have names taken directly from Greek and Roman mythology. For example, Mars is named for the Greek and Roman god of War, also known as Ares, while its moons, Deimos and Phobos are named for his sons. Likewise, Jupiter is named after Zeus while quite a few of its moons are named after certain of his sexual conquests. This tradition is largely true for every planet in our solar system with the singular exception of the moons of Uranus which are named after characters from the plays of Shakespeare.

The only other exception to this naming convention are the decidedly generic sounding names of the Earth and Moon. Since we’ve already explained how the Earth came to be known as such, that just leaves us with why our largest satellite doesn’t have a more colourful name like the moons of the other planets in our solar system.

As it turns out, the Moon did have other names, notable among them, and in keeping with the naming schema of other local celestial bodies, was one taken from the name of an ancient and powerful deity- Luna, the Roman Goddess of the Moon.

Latin in origin, the word “Luna” is still very much associated with the Moon (as is “Selene”, to a lesser extent, the Greek Moon goddess). For instance, “Luna” is noted as being the root of words like “lunar”. However, “Luna” as a name for the Moon is still pre-dated by early derivatives of the word moon.

In any event, when humans discovered there were other planets out there, we still weren’t sure that these planets had their own moons until four of Jupiter’s satellites were directly observed by Galileo Galilei in 1610.

When humanity first learned of other moons orbiting the planets in our solar system, one of the primary reasons they were given names was to differentiate them from the Moon, which, according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the entity tasked with naming every celestial body in the night sky, is still the official name of our moon in English.

What’s more, the naming of the Moon was one of the first things the IAU did when it was formed in 1919, because to quote them, they wanted: “to standardize the multiple, confusing systems of nomenclature for the Moon that were then in use.”

In regards to why the IAU settled on “Moon” instead of one of the more flamboyant names that existed, they stated that since the Moon was the first known moon, and popularly called something like that for millennia in many languages, it was easier to simply make it official than introduce a new name, since their original goal was to make things easier for people to understand, not harder.

And, of course, “Moon” is actually a pretty cool name, only made less interesting by the fact that we’ve applied it as a generic name for the natural, large satellites of other planets.  Had we not done that, “Moon” would have seemed every bit as distinct of a name as “Pluto”, which incidentally was not named after the Disney character, as many have suggested.  Although it was named by an 11 year old girl, helping to give legs to the myth about the Disney origin.

This brings us to the origin of the name of Earth’s favourite satellite, “Moon”.  The word “moon” can be traced back to Old English, where it is said to have derived from the Proto-Germanic word “menon”, which in turn derived from the Proto-Indo-European “*menses”, meaning “month, moon”.  This highlights how far back the association between the Moon and the passage of time goes.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:

• Why the Same Side of the Moon Always Faces the Earth
• The First to Pee on the Moon and Other Interesting Moon Firsts
• That Time the United States Planned on Nuking the Moon
• The Real Reason the Moon Looks Bigger on the Horizon
• What the Moon Smells Like

Bonus Facts:

• With few exceptions, the Moon has long been associated with women, fertility and a whole host of other commonly ascribed “female” attributes. Why? In most cases, menstrual cycles more or less coincide with the phases of the Moon. It should then come as no surprise that across many languages, the words for “moon”, “month”, and the name for a woman’s menstrual cycle often has the same root word. For instance, the English word “menses” (Websters: “the flow of blood that comes from a woman’s body each month”) popped up in the late 16th century deriving from the Latin “menses” meaning “month”.
• The IAU is the only recognised organization on Earth that has the power to name a celestial body and they’ve specifically gone on record as saying that any service offering to sell you the rights to name a star or any other object in the celestial sky is a scam.
• The IAU has largely maintained the tradition of naming objects in our Solar System after figures from ancient myth and legend, both for consistency and as a homage to the pioneers of their profession. However, for the sake of simplicity and to make communication between experts from different lingual backgrounds easy, objects outside of our solar system are usually given numerical designations.

Expand for References

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The alphabet has only 26 letters. With these 26 magic symbols, however, millions of words are written every day.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

That music means it’s time for Howard Markel to talk about our latest word of the week. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

HOWARD MARKEL: Good afternoon, Ira.

FLATOW: Let’s talk about what our word for today is. Moon, is it not?

MARKEL: The word is moon. And you know, it’s not surprising if we look at the heavens. It’s captured the imagination and the cosmology for centuries of people who looked at it. It comes from an Old English word, mona. But there are many other languages — Old Germanic, Old Saxon, Old Dutch, Old Nordic — that have similar words for it. But by the 15th century, English-speaking people began calling it the moon, although they often spelled it M-O-O-N-E.

FLATOW: And so I always thought it was like lunar (unintelligible).

MARKEL: Well, that’s the Latin word for moon, of course. And Luna was the Roman goddess of the moon. And, now, they, of course, stole it from the Greeks. The Roman stole a lot of things from the Greeks. But the Greek goddess of the moon was named Selene, and that word — that comes from the word selas, which means brightness. But we still use lunar as an adjective all the time, you know. But in antiquity, it not only refered to things like insanity — a lunatic or a lunacy — but also a woman’s menstrual cycle, which is 28 days just like the orbit of the moon around the Earth.

FLATOW: And so where did the man in the moon come from?

MARKEL: The man in the moon, well, you know, if you look at the moon, particularly when it’s a full moon, you can imagine a face. Now, other people have said they can imagine a man carrying sticks or a man with a dog. My favorite is you can imagine a rabbit standing on its hind legs, but I don’t know what those people are drinking. But — and you see it in a lot of the examples in literature, in the Bible and so on. But there actually was a book called «The Man in the Moone.» It was written by a man named Francis Godwin. It was published in 1638. And Ira, it may be the first example of science fiction in English literature because it details a voyage to the moon.

FLATOW: All right. Howard Markel, we have an abbreviated version. We’ve run out of time. I want to thank you for joining us today.

MARKEL: Always a pleasure, Ira.

FLATOW: Howard Markel, professor of history of medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. That’s about all the time we have for today. I’m Ira Flatow. We’ll see you next week. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.