înfoia

Forms

Verb: third-person singular present înfoaie, past participle înfoiat; 1st conjugation.^[1]

Etymology

It is either inherited from Vulgar Latin *infolliāre, formed on follis (“bellows, bag”), or a Romanian formation on the plural foi of foaie.^[2][1] The DA, MDA2 and Tiktin take the Latin form, which Cihac, Papahagi, Candrea and Densusianu and Pascu proposed.^[3][4][5][6] The DA links its first sense with foale “bellows”.^[3] Ciorănescu, following Rosetti, prefers the derivation from ⟨foi⟩, as the variant înfoi shows.^[6]

Ciorănescu and the DA compare Aromanian mfuľare (“to fill a skin bag with milk or cheese”);^[6][3][1] Wiktionary gives the verb as nfoljiu.^[6][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to Bobb's dictionary of 1822;^[5][4] MDA2 cites the Lexicon of Buda of 1825.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

The DA gives as the original sense “to swell, grow in volume while loosening”, like bellows, and lists its applications: soil loosened by digging, earth soaking up water, rising water, puffed-out hair and feathers, a blooming plant, billowing clothes, and warping skin or bark.^[3] A rarer sense, “to come into leaf”, goes with foaie.^[3] The figurative “to put on airs” is old: Pann has „se-nfoaie ca varza” “he puffs himself up like a cabbage”, of a haughty man.^[5][2] Regionally it is said of a horse pricking up its ears.^[4]

Timeline

• 1822 – first record, in Bobb's dictionary.^[5]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon of Buda.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To puff up, to swell, like bellows.^[2][4][1]
2. (reflexive, of birds) To ruffle its feathers.^[2][4]
3. (reflexive) To turn round and round, to twirl.^[2]
4. (reflexive, figurative) To put on airs, to give oneself importance.^[2][1]
5. (reflexive, of soil and other materials) To become loose.^[2][4]

Word family

• înfoiere

Related words

• foi
• foaie
• foale
• Aromanian nfoljiu

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 547
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. înfoia
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1228
5. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. înfoiá
6. ^ a b c d Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. foaie