bucca

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʌk.ə/
• Rhymes: -ʌkə

Borrowed from Cornish bucca.

bucca (plural buccas)

1. (UK) A storm spirit in Cornish folklore, traditionally believed to inhabit mines and coastal communities.
   • 2008, Oliver Berry, Belinda Dixon, Devon, Cornwall & Southwest England, page 273:

     a fabled menagerie of fairies, buccas, sprites and giants

Borrowed from Latin bucca (“the cheek”).

bucca (plural buccae)

1. (anatomy) Synonym of cheek.

• “bucca”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Possibly borrowed from Old English pūca (“demon, goblin”). Or, from Irish púca (“hobgoblin”).

bucca

1. hobgoblin

• → English: bucca

• Daimler, M. (2017). Fairies: A Guide to the Celtic Fair Folk. United Kingdom: John Hunt Publishing
• Isles of Wonder: the cover story. (n.d.). (n.p.): Lulu.com, p. 181

bucca (plural buccas)

1. mouth

• buca

Uncertain. Celtic origin is suspected due to similarity with beccus (“beak”), names like Gaulish Buccus, Buccō, Bucciō as well as the appearance of words bocca and boca (of unknown meaning) on the Larzac tablet. IEW compares it with Proto-Germanic *pukkô (“bag, pouch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew, *bʰew- (“to swell, puff”), whose initial b- would point to a substrate or imitative origin. Compare also English puke, German fauchen.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈbuk.ka/, [ˈbʊkːä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈbuk.ka/, [ˈbukːä]

bucca f (genitive buccae); first declension

1. (anatomy):
   1. the soft part of the cheek puffed or filled out in speaking or eating
   2. (in the plural) the jaw
   3. (colloquial) the mouth

      Synonym: ōs

      • Lucius Pomponius Bononiensis, Comedies 150:

        sī valēbit, puls in buccam bētet

        if he's well, the porridge will find a way into his mouth

2. (metonymically):
   1. one who fills his cheeks in speaking; declaimer, bawler
   2. one who stuffs out his cheeks in eating; parasite
   3. a mouthful
3. (transferred sense) any cavity in general
4. (hapax) A catchword of uncertain meaning used in a guessing game, possibly equivalent and/or related to English buck buck.
   • c. 27 CE – 66 CE, Petronius, Satyricon 64.12:

     bucca, bucca, quot sunt hīc?

Found in the sense of 'mouth' beginning from Pomponius and Varro (early 1st century BCE), as well as with Cicero in the colloquial expression in buccam venīre (“to come to mind first”), foreshadowing the eventual replacement of ōs by this term.

First-declension noun.

• ōs

• “bucca” on page 266 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “bucca”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 76
• Pokorny, Julius (1959) “b(e)u-2, bh(e)ū̆-”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 1, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, pages 98-102

• “bucca”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “bucca”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• bucca in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• bucca in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

From Proto-West Germanic *bukkō, from Proto-Germanic *bukkô (“male goat”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰugo- (“buck”). Akin to Old High German boc, Old Norse bukkr, Middle Dutch boc, Avestan 𐬠𐬏𐬰𐬀 (būza, “buck, goat”), Old Armenian բուծ (buc, “lamb”), Old English bucc (“male deer”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈbuk.kɑ/

bucca m (nominative plural buccan)

1. he-goat

• bucc
• byċċen

• Middle English: bukke, bucke, buk, bocke, bucce, boke, buc
  • English: buck
  • Scots: buk, buke, buik
  • Yola: buch

• vucca, ucca

From Latin bucca.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbukka/
• Hyphenation: bùc‧ca

bucca f (plural bucchi)

1. mouth