mulier (plural muliers)
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “mulier”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
From Proto-Italic *moljes, of uncertain origin; it has been proposed that it might derive from mollior, comparative of mollis (“soft, tender”), while others propose it might be akin to mulgere and therefore mean “the milk-giver”.
mulier f (genitive mulieris); third declension
A mulier was a woman who was married in contrast with a virgo (“unmarried woman of a marriageable age”). Thus, if a noble young girl of age 12 got married, she would be called a mulier even though by today's standards, we would not call this girl a "woman". In contrast, if a common young woman of age 19 or 21 was still unmarried, she often was still called a virgo despite being much older than that young noble girl married at age 12.
If an older woman for whatever reason was not married off, she could be called a mulier too, so it is not a term used exclusively for married women.
Third-declension noun.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | mulier | mulierēs |
| Genitive | mulieris | mulierum |
| Dative | mulierī | mulieribus |
| Accusative | mulierem | mulierēs |
| Ablative | muliere | mulieribus |
| Vocative | mulier | mulierēs |