masca

masca

1. inflection of mascar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

• mascha, mascara, *mascra

From Proto-West Germanic *maskā (“mesh”), from the practice of wearing mesh netting over the face as a mask to filter air, keeping soot and dust particles from entering the lungs. As in German Larve or Fratze—and other words the reader may adduce for completion—, via the idea of any nightmarish appearance senses of “a spectre” and “a witch” secondarily derived, though they be attested and perhaps borrowed before the main sense in Latin.

A variation with an -r- suffix, perhaps *maskā +‎ *-þr +‎ *-ā, found already simplified in Old English mæsċre, was presumably also borrowed into Latin, to account for Italian maschera, resolving the consonant cluster further by anaptyxis, and perhaps connecting the Latin-Romance suffix -āria, and some adduce Old French mascurer, maschurer (“to blacken (the face)”), Occitan mascarar, Catalan mascarar, Walloon maxhurer, derived from mascher (“to thump”) and well-known Arabic مَسْخَرَة (masḵara, “buffoon, fool, laughing-stock, anything ridiculous”) from سَخِرَ (saḵira, “to ridicule, to laugh at”), for which derivation one would have to imagine Early Islamic society inclined to comedy even towards the Christian world, apparently contrasting the dark notions behind the Germanic term.

masca f (genitive mascae); first declension [first attested in 643][1]

1. witch, hag
   • 643, Edictum Rothari, section 197:

     De crimen nefandum. Si quis mundium de puella libera aut muliere habens eamque strigam, quod est mascam, clamaverit, excepto pater aut frater, ammittat mundium ipsius, ut supra, et illa potestatem habeat vult ad parentes, vult curtem regis cum rebus suis propriis se commendare, qui mundium eius in potestatem debeat habere. Et si vir ille negaverit, hoc crimen non dixissit, liceat eum se pureficare et mundium, sicut habuit, habere, si se pureficaverit.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 643, Edictum Rothari, section 376:

     Nullus presumat aldiam alienam aut ancillam quasi strigam, quem dicunt mascam, occidere, quod christianis mentibus nullatenus credendum est nec possibilem, ut mulier hominem vivum intrinsecus possit comedere. Si quis de cetero talem inlecitam et nefandam rem penetrare presumpserit: si aldiam occiderit, conponat pro statum eius solidos LX, et insuper addat pro culpa solidos centum, medietatem regi et medietatem cuius aldia fuerit. Si autem ancilla fuerit, conponat pro statum eius, ut supra constitutum est, si ministiriales aut rusticana fuerit; et insuper pro culpa solidos LX, medietatem regi et medietatem cuius ancilla fuerit. Si vero iudex huic opus malum penetrare iusserit, ipse de suo proprio pena suprascripta conponat.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. spectre; nightmare
3. mask

First-declension noun.

• Italo-Dalmatian
  • Italian: maschera (see there for further descendants)
  • Sicilian: màscara
• Old Occitan: masca
  • Occitan: masca
  • ⇒ Old Occitan: mascoto
    • Provençal: mascota
      • → French: mascotte (see there for further descendants)
    • → Galician: mascoto
• Venetian: máscara

• masca 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)

From Old Occitan mascoto, from Medieval Latin masca (“specter, nightmare”); see mask for more.

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masca f (plural mascas)

1. witch (person who uses magic)
2. mask

• (witch): fachilhièra, bruèissa
• (mask): masqueta

• māsca, maska, māska

From Proto-West Germanic *maskā (“mesh”).

masca f

1. mesh

• Middle High German: masche
  • German: Masche
  • Luxembourgish: Masch

masca

1. inflection of mascar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Borrowed from French masquer.

a masca (third-person singular present maschează, past participle mascat) 1st conj.

1. to mask, to hide

masca

1. inflection of mascar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative