The very ingenious and closely reasoned article of Mr. L. R. Palmer (C.Q. XXXII, p. 57) seems to us to deserve examination, the more so as we totally disagree with his views, both from the point of view of etymology and that of Religionsforschung. To put his conclusions briefly, he supposes mactus to be derived from a hypothetical verb macio, signifying ‘bespatter, sprinkle’; mactus then would properly mean ‘sprinkled’(with wine, blood, milk or some other fluid used in sacrifice), and might also be used of the substance which was sprinkled or poured, thus accounting for the double construction of the secondary verb mactare (aliquid alicui or aliquem aliqua re). In particular, Mr. Palmer supposes that macte uirtute alludes to the blood with which the warrior thus addressed is besprinkled, and so to his tabu condition. To the whole of this construction we object, holding that the old derivation from the root MAG is correct (though a verb *mago is as hypothetical as Mr. Palmer's *macio) and that mactus signifies ‘increased’, ‘made greater or stronger’, mactare properly ‘to put someone in the condition of being mactus’, and by an easy transition ‘to sacrifice a victim’ (to a deity, to make him mactus).