înfuleca

Forms

a înfuleca (third-person singular present înfulecă, past participle înfulecat, third-person subjunctive înfulece; 1st conjugation)^[1] The variant înfulica is frequent in Moldavian writers: Creangă's giant „răpede mi ți le-a înfulicat” “quickly gulped them down”.^[2][3] A rare form înfuli (present înfulesc) is also recorded.^[4][5]

Etymology

DEX, MDA2, NODEX and Wiktionary give it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *infollicō (“to puff like bellows”), a Latin verb formed with in- on follicō, itself from follis (“bag, bellows”).^[6][7][8][1] The REW lists the Romanian verb under that Latin verb, glossed “to move like a bellows”, beside Catalan folgar, Spanish holgar and Portuguese folgar “to breathe out, to rest”.^[9] Candrea–Densusianu note that Vegetius uses it for noisy breathing.^[10] The sense “to gobble” is explained through foale “belly”: Tiktin assumes its influence, and the DA thinks the verb first meant “to put into the belly”, as the regional sense “to tuck up” matches sufleca from Vulgar Latin *subfollicō.^[4][2]

Ciorănescu finds this explanation unconvincing, because the Latin verb means “to blow, to puff” and leaves the sense he takes as the oldest, “to load, overburden”, unexplained.^[5] He derives the word, under the variant ⟨înfulica⟩, from Latin fullicō “to shake, to beat”, from fullō, comparing the meaning of Spanish cargar.^[5] Wiktionary mentions both explanations.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1832, in the sense “to gulp down hastily and greedily”.^[4] MDA2 dates it from Creangă's tales, quoted from their 1890 edition, where the giant Flămânzilă swallows cartloads of bread at once.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

The main sense, of animals and then of people, is to eat fast and greedily, swallowing without chewing; it is a familiar word.^[2][6] In Moldavia, Bukovina and Transylvania it also means to lift a load that is too heavy, to carry, to load and to pile up, and, of clothes, to tuck up.^[7][2][10] Writers also use it figuratively, of a river that swallows the crops.^[3]

Timeline

• 1832 – the first record, in a work Tiktin cites as Cornelli.^[4]
• 1890 – înfulicat in Creangă's tales, MDA2's first record.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, colloquial) To eat fast and greedily, to wolf down, to gobble.^[6][8][1]
2. (regional) To lift something heavy, to heave a load.^[7][2]
3. (regional) To load; to pile up.^[7]
4. (regional, of clothes) To tuck up, to roll up.^[7][10]

Related words

• foale
• sufleca
• îmbuca

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. înfuleca
3. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 632
4. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. înfuleca
5. ^ a b c 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. înfulica
6. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 547
7. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1230
8. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. înfuleca
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3417
10. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. înfuleca