Did you know that muscle comes from mouse?
You didn’t read that wrong.
Apparently back in Ancient Greece, someone thought that bulging muscles (think biceps) resembled mice. So mys was the root for both words, and that just carried right up on through the millennia and into Latin, and from there to many other languages.
I don’t know about you, but I thought the shared letters and sounds were pure coincidence. Turns out, the Latin musculus means “little mouse.” That’s where our English word came from, way back in the 1300s.
Now you know.






Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
So I guess Mighty Mouse wasn’t so far off 🙂