Description:

The term 'maci' comes from later Old Common and has meanings pertaining to stealth and concealment. Its base meaning is 'hide'.

Verb:

As a verb, 'maci' is a transitive skurun verb that takes an ergative concealer, either an object providing concealment, or an agent concealing something, and an absolutive thing concealed. It can take a number of peripheral arguments. The place where the object is hidden can be introduced with 'e' - other prepositions of location can be used to specify a partiuclar relaitonship, but where clear from context, 'e' will usually be used. An entity the object is being hidden from can be introduced with 'ro'.

The happat benefactive form does not work the way you would think - you would tend to think that the dative argument would be the location hidden. Idiomatically, however, this interpretation is not used and will not be understood. Instead, this form is sometimes used in the context of gift giving - when the person from whom the object is hidden is intended to receive the object, not be kept from it. The dative object is usually actually not used, and the happat form implies a more positive or altruistic connotation for the act.

The pali antipassive can be interpreted as just to hide oneself, but a thing hidden can be specified periphrastically with the null preposition.

'Maci' can also be a slightly humourous way to say 'stow' or 'put away'.

Noun:

As a noun, 'maci' means a hidden thing or secret. The derived forms macica and macika are person or thing that conceals and thing concealed, respectively. Macistep is a hiding place. Maci can also be a general word for stealth or concealment, but this meaning can be made more explicit with 'macisyn'.

The derived form 'macikasyn' is the word for 'eclipse', both in astronomical and vernacular contexts. It can also mean 'occlusion'. In the sense of an eclipse, a solar eclipse is 'ny macikasyn na Sol' in a scientific context, and possibly 'na macikasyn na eon' colloquially. Substitute the words na Luna and na opil, respectively, for lunar eclipses.

Modifier:

As a modifier, 'macis' means hidden or concealed. When applied to a person who is evidently from context not concealed themselves it can have a difficult-to-translate sense of one who does not reveal thmselves, who keeps a lot of thigns hidden, who is secretive, but it has a somewhat negatibe connotation. The forms macicas and macikas can be used interchangeably with macis to specify the senses of secretive versus hidden.