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.

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

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

1. biting

First/second-declension adjective.

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

mordicus (not comparable)

1. using the teeth
   • 65 BCE – 8 BCE, Horace, Satires 1.8.27:

     pullam dēvellere mordicus agnam

     tear a black ewe-lamb to pieces with the teeth

2. tenaciously
   • 45 BCE, Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, volume 1, section 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”, 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