mjw

Egyptian

(the Gayer-Anderson cat)

Etymology 1

Most likely onomatopoeic, from the animal’s cry (meow). Compare Chinese 貓／猫 (māo), Lao ແມວ (mǣu).

Other hypotheses connect it to Proto-Afroasiatic *m-r or *m-l, the former on the basis of Alagwa mariy-amo (“wild cat”), Lamé Ngete mēr (“serval”) and méríán (“wild cat”), Pévé merian (“wild cat, serval”), Zime-Dari Pévé mīēr (“genette”), and the latter on the basis of Musgu ámíl (“African civet”), Bedanga Sokoro melā (“cat”). Either one of these could also be plausibly connected with the ancestor of Egyptian mꜣj (“lion”).

Pronunciation

(reconstructed Old Egyptian) IPA^(key): /mi(ʀ)juw/
(modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /miuː/
- Conventional anglicization: miu

Noun

m

(male) cat; tomcat
- c. 332-30 BCE,, Book of the Dead of Iuefankh, chapter 17, lines 45-46 (pTurin Museo Egizio 1791):
  
  jnk mjw pfy ꜥꜣ ntj ḥr p(s)št jšd r-gs.f m jwnw grḥ pfy n(j) ꜥḥꜣ-ꜥ(w) jrt zꜣw(t) sbjw
  hrw pfy n(j) ḥtmt ḫftjw nw nb-(r)-ḏr jm.f
  I am that great tomcat beside whom the desert date tree was split in Heliopolis on that night of battle and the guarding of rebels,
  on that day on which the enemies of the Lord of All were destroyed.

Inflection

Declension of mjw (masculine)

singular

mjw

dual

mjwwj

plural

mjww

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of mjw

mjw

Derived terms

mjwt (“female cat”)

Descendants

Demotic: mj, jmj
- Coptic: ⲉⲙⲟⲩ (emou) (Sahidic, Bohairic, Fayyumic), ⲁⲙⲟⲩ (amou) (Sahidic)
→ English: Mau

Etymology 2

From mj (“like”) +‎ -w.

Pronunciation

(modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /miuː/
- Conventional anglicization: miu

Noun

m

likeness

Inflection

Declension of mjw (masculine)

singular	mjw
dual	mjwwj
plural	mjww

Derived terms

mjwj

References

Takács, Gábor (2007), “mj.w & mj.t”, in Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, volume 3, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 134, →ISBN
James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 376.