FROM THE DICTIONARY OF MEDIEVAL LATIN IN CZECH LANDS: MUSCIDA HUBA

The article deals with the pair muscida huba, found in several 14th- and 15th-century Latin-Czech glossaries. Its interpretation is not immediately clear, because there were two homonymous words huba in the Old Czech, the one meaning "muzzle", the other "fungus". Jan Gebauer, the author of the authoritative Old Czech dictionary, ascribed to the word huba paired with muscida the meaning "fungus". On the basis of parallels from the translation of Ptolemy's Almagest written by Gerhard of Cremona in the 12th century and a Latin-Norman glossary from the 13th century, the author argues that the word actually meant "muzzle". He also discusses the etymology of the Latin word and the route by which it found its way in Latin-Czech glossaries.