Mostellaria

Perhaps an ellipsis of mōstellāria fābula f (“ghost story”), from *mōstellum +‎ -ārius (suffix forming relational adjectives), from mōnstrum (“monstrosity, portent”) +‎ -lus (diminutive suffix), with simplification of -ns- to -s- (a common pronunciation change among Latin speakers). De Vaan gives the pre-form as *mone-stro-lāri-.^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [moːs.tɛlˈlaː.ri.a]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [mos.t̪elˈlaː.ri.a]

Mōstellāria f

1. the name of a play by Plautus
   • 1839 [8th century CE], Paulus Diaconus, edited by Karl Otfried Müller, Excerpta ex libris Pompeii Festi De significatione verborum, page 166, line 14:

     Plautus in Parasito pigro: "ambo magna laude lauti, postremo ambo sumus non nauci." Item in Mostellaria: "Quod id esse dicam verbum nauci, nescio."

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

First-declension noun, singular only.

• “Mostellaria”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “Mostellaria”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 387
• Mostellaria on Wikipedia.Wikipedia