The story
- Latin · derived fromlacertus“upper arm”
- Late Latin · borrowed fromlacertus“muscle”
- English todaylacertus
From Late Latin lacertus (“muscle”), from Classical Latin lacertus (“upper arm”), possibly from lacerta (“lizard”). For the semantics, compare muscle from mūsculus (“little mouse”), derived from a supposed resemblance to little mice.
Words from the same roots
Latinlacertus all →
lizardalligator
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.