Laudator Temporis Acti

Plautus, Epidicus 333 (tr. Wolfgang de Melo):

Curse you, you coward!

uae tibi, muricide homo!

muricida Bothe: murcide Lambinus

George E. Duckworth ad loc.:

A term of abuse which is not found elsewhere in Plautus. Festus (p. 125 M.) defines muricidus as ignauus, stultus, iners; these meanings suit well the reproach of Stratippocles, since Chaeribulus is unable to render him any financial assistance. The word was explained by Scaliger, Pareus, and others as from mus and caedo, μυοκτόνος, "coward"; cf. Ulrich, Ueber die Composita, p. 7 n. Bothe understood it as τοιχώρυχος (cf. Pseud. 980: es perfossor parietum) and this interpretation is accepted by Hirth (De interiectionum usu, p. 20) and by Hofmann (Umgangssprache, p. 87). See, however, Grenier, Composés nominaux, p. 764: "L'hypothèse la plus vraisemblable est que nous avons là, non pas un composé, mais une déformation comique — comique précisément, parce que le sens en demeure énigmatique, de l'adjectif mūrcĭdus, lent, paresseux — en français vulgaire: 'fainéant, propre à rien.'" On murcidus, cf. Augustine, De civ. dei 4, 16: deam Murciam, quae praeter modum non moueret ac faceret hominem, ut ait Pomponius, murcidum, id est nimis desidiosum et inactuosum; see Loewe, Prodromus, pp. 282 f.