mot-

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Type:	lexical
Meaning:	'penis, male' (?)
Language:	Celtic
Phonemic analysis:	/mot/-
Attestation:	muθikuś

Commentary

A u-stem mot(t)u-, possibly also o-stem mot(t)o-, is attested in Gaulish onomastics, see AcS II: 646 f., Delamarre 2007: 227 et passim. Possible OIr. comparanda include moth (m. o-stem) 'amazement, stupor', moth (m.) 'penis, male', and the gloss moth .i. guth 'voice' (KGP: 245 f., 275, GPN: 233). Etymologically unclear moth 'amazement, stupor' (LEIA: M-66, Irslinger 2002: 299) can probably be excluded, as it is an o-stem, though individual Gaulish attestations could belong here. Recent publications tend to favour the 'penis'-connection (e.g. DLG: 230 f., Meid 2005: 237, Stüber 2005: 78, cf. also RIG L-115 dagomota 'good to fuck' according to Meid 2014: 69), though moth 'penis' is usually reconstructed as PC *muto- rather than equally possible *moto- to agree with putative cognates such as Lat. mūtō 'penis' (PIE *m(i̯)uh₁-to- without reflex of the laryngeal in Celtic?) and/or mutilus 'truncated', see IEW: 753, LEIA M-65, M-77, Irslinger 2002: 270, Matasović 2009: 282, Zair 2012: 140. Delamarre DLG: 230 argues that the variation in the stem can be due to the taboo nature of the word (cf. the phonetic uncertainties in another alleged 'penis'-word, buđ-).

Bibliography

AcS	Alfred Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, Leipzig: Teubner 1896–1907.
CIL	Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. (17 volumes, various supplements)
Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.
DLG	Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, 2nd, revised edition, Paris: Errance 2003.