mordicus

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mordicus

1. fiercely, persistently, intransigently

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mordicus

1. tenaciously
2. obstinately

• “mordicus”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

From mordeō +‎ -icus, not other adverb in -icus is attested.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈmɔr.dɪ.kʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈmɔr.di.kus]

mordicus (not comparable)

1. using the teeth
   • c. 200 BCE, Plautus, Menaechmi 1.3.11–12:

     Meretrix tantisper blanditur, dum illud quod rapiat videt;
     nam si amabas, iam oportebat nasum abreptum mordicus.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • c. 35 BCE, Horace, Satires (book 1) 1.8.27:

     pullam dēvellere mordicus agnam

     tear a black ewe-lamb to pieces with the teeth

2. (figuratively) tenaciously

   rem tenēre mordicus ― to hold fast to something

   • 45 BCE, Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum 4.28.78:

     Ita cum ea volunt retinere, quae superiori sententiae conveniunt, in Aristonem incidunt; cum id fugiunt, re eadem defendunt, quae Peripatetici, verba tenent mordicus.

     So, when they want to keep those things that fit with the previous statement, they agree with Aristo; when they avoid that, they defend themselves the same way as the Peripatetics, they maintain their words tenaciously.

mordicus (feminine mordica, neuter mordicum); first/second-declension adjective

1. (hapax legomenon) biting
   • c. 64 BCE – 17 BCE, Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae 273:

     […] ; quadrigis autem uicit Iolaus Iphicli filius Glaucum Sisyphi filium, quem equi mordici distraxerunt; […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

First/second-declension adjective.

• >? Old Spanish: mórdago
  • Spanish: muérdago (possibly)

• “mordĭcus¹”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “mordĭcus²”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “mordicus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “mordicus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to hold fast in the teeth (also metaphorically, obstinately): mordicus tenere aliquid