Piss-ant discovery

New word for the day: pismire = ant.

From “piss” and “mire”, apparently due to the “urinous smell of an anthill” – I’ve never noticed such a smell, but maybe European ants are stinkier than upstate NY ants…

“Mire” here doesn’t mean mud. It’s another word entirely – an old-school word for “ant”. There’s something like it in lots of the Germanic languages. Interestingly, some scholars think it comes from a root which gives us “mig” and such Latinate joys as “micturition”. “Mig” is defined by one “Atkinson” in his Cleveland Glossary:

Mig, liquid manure; the fluid which runs away from the midden, or from the stall drains of a cow-house, &c.

That is to say, mig = piss.

So, poor Pissy Emmet the piss-ant is defamed in both syllables of pismire. And he doesn’t escape it in Latin “formica” (or descendants like Spanish hormiga) either – you can guess where those last two syllables come from. Sadly, I don’t have the resources to determine whether “myrmex” in Greek comes from the same root. It would be a grave indignity for Achilles, whose compatriots the Myrmidons took their name from the ant, if this were so.

Not surprisingly, looking up “pismire” in the Promptorium Parvulorum puts you in a pretty funny section. Here are three consecutive entries:
PYSMERE. Formica.
PYSMERYSHYLLE. Formicarium
PYSPOTT, idem quod pyssynge vessel, supra.

That last one just cracks me up!

17 Responses to “Piss-ant discovery”

  1. Becky Says:

    you have to be kidding — i just this morning came across pismire in john mcphee’s “the pine barrens” and added to the list of words to look up today. thanks for saving me the trouble!

  2. Donna Wentworth Says:

    Jesse, you’re officially my favorite blogger.

  3. David Says:

    I stumbled upon your blog, researching ‘pismire ants’ following up on a citation in Donn Pearce’s novel, “Cool Hand Luke”, where the narrator gives the origin of pissant from the pismire ants [traveling back and forth, back and forth up the hill].

    Perhaps you still receive the comments from this blog, so you will know it has not gone entirely unnoticed by the millions of users throughout the day.

    Thank you. :|

  4. Robert Allen Stone Says:

    stinky ants and very nasty

  5. Robert Allen Stone Says:

    stay away from them …… they live in trees

  6. Moudy Says:

    hello, thanks for the interesting blogpost. i?m from germany and i?m always looking for different international blogs to make my own better. its very exciting to read blogposts of all colours to learn. keep on rocking your blog. my own blog

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