muscle：皮肤下的小老鼠
Bend your arm and tighten your biceps, then watch it move under your skin. Does it look a bit like a small animal running about? The ancient Romans thought so. That's why the English word "muscle" comes from the Latin word for "little mouse".
In Latin, mus meant "mouse", and musculus meant "little mouse". Roman writers noticed that when someone flexed their arm, the muscle seemed to scurry up and down beneath the skin, like a mouse under a blanket. So they started using musculus for muscles too.
The ancient Greeks had exactly the same idea. Their word mys could mean either "mouse" or "muscle". In several other languages, too, the words for "mouse" and "muscle" are related.
English borrowed "muscle" from French in the late 1300s, and the spelling kept the "sc" from the original Latin. That's why there's a silent "c" in "muscle" today – a little reminder of its Roman roots. The adjective "muscular" keeps the sound of the "c", which makes the connection easier to see.
So next time you're at the gym, you can tell your friends that you're not building muscles at all. You're just training your mice.
弯起胳膊，绷紧你的二头肌，再看看它在皮肤下面动来动去。它看起来像不像一只小动物在跑来跑去？古罗马人就是这么觉得的。所以英语里的“muscle”（肌肉），来自拉丁语里的“小老鼠”。
在拉丁语里，mus 的意思是“老鼠”，musculus 的意思是“小老鼠”。罗马作家们发现，当一个人弯曲手臂用力时，肌肉好像在皮肤下面窜上窜下，就像一只老鼠在毯子底下乱跑。于是，他们开始把肌肉也叫作 musculus。
古希腊人的想法一模一样。他们的单词 mys 既可以指“老鼠”，也可以指“肌肉”。在其他好几种语言里，“老鼠”和“肌肉”这两个词也是有关联的。
英语在 14 世纪末从法语里借来了“muscle”，拼写保留了原来拉丁语里的“sc”。这就是为什么今天“muscle”里有一个不发音的“c”——它是这个词罗马根源的小小纪念。形容词“muscular”（肌肉发达的）里的“c”还是要发音的，所以更容易看出两者的联系。
所以，下次去健身房的时候，你可以告诉朋友们，你根本不是在练肌肉，你只是在训练你的小老鼠。