Words at Play : Words With Remarkable Origins, Vol. 1
Imagine a statue in ancient Rome. Its muscles, to an audience of that time, may have suggested something very different from what they do today.
Muscle comes from the Latin musculus, which means "little mouse."
Why? Probably because a flexed muscle (a bicep, for example) was thought to resemble a mouse – with a tendon for a tail – moving beneath the skin.
More Words at Play
