șchiop

Forms

șchiop m or n (feminine singular șchioapă, masculine plural șchiopi, feminine/neuter plural șchioape)^[1] Old texts write școp (Tiktin's 16th-century records) and scop: „[Iapa] au fost ră și scopă de un picior” “the mare was bad and lame in one leg” (c. 1620–1640).^[2][3] Western Muntenia has schiop and Maramureș știop.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excloppus (“lame”), formed with ex- on Late Latin cloppus (“lame”), a word recorded only in glosses.^{[6][5][2][3][1]} The Romanian word requires a form with ⟨s-⟩, and Ciorănescu explains it either by the prefix or by a blend with Latin stloppus (“a slap, a smacking sound”), the rhythmic noise of a limping walk.^[7] The Late Latin word is probably imitative.^[1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian shcljop, Megleno-Romanian șcl'op and Istro-Romanian șliop.^[7][8][9] The Romance cognates include Old French clop and Occitan clop from the simple form, and French écloper “to lame” with the prefix;^[10] Tiktin compares Albanian shqepët.^[2][7][10] Wiktionary also compares Italian zoppo, which Nocentini takes from a separate imitative Romance word.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is școp in a Gospel book of 1551–1553.^[2] MDA2 dates the word to a text of about 1620–1640, where a mare is „scopă de un picior” “lame in one leg”.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The core sense has not changed: a person or animal that limps or has an injured leg.^[6][3] By analogy it is said of furniture that does not stand firm on its legs, and figuratively of verse with faulty metre: In Oltenia it is said of a stunted vine stock.^[12]

The feminine șchioapă became a measure of length, the span between thumb and forefinger spread apart;^[13] Ciorănescu explains the name by the hand's limping movement when it measures span by span.^[6][7] The verb șchiopăta “to limp” is traced by Pușcariu to Vulgar Latin *exclopitō and by Tiktin and the REW to Vulgar Latin *cloppicō.^[7]

Timeline

• 1551–1553 – școp in a Slavonic–Romanian Gospel book.^[2]
• c. 1620–1640 – scopă “lame”, MDA2's first record.^[5][3]
• 1648 – șchiop in the New Testament.^[3]
• c. 1660 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic “lame”.^[13]
• 1688 – „Orbii văd și șchiopii îmblă” “the blind see and the lame walk” (Matthew 11:5).^[2][14]
• 1801 – Shchióp “claudus” in Klein's dictionary.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. lame: limping, with one leg shorter than the other or missing, or with a diseased leg; often used as a noun, “a lame person”.^[6][5]
2. (of objects) Not resting evenly on all its legs; unsteady.^[6]
3. (figurative, of verse) With faulty metre or rhyme; poor, weak.^[6][4]

Noun

1. (feminine șchioapă) A folk measure of length, the span from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger spread apart.^[6]

Word family

• șchiopa
• șchiopăta
• șchiopesc
• șchioapă

Related words

• Aromanian shcljop

Usage notes

De-o șchioapă or cât o șchioapă means “tiny” (or, the other way round, “very big”).^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. șchiop
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. șchiop
4. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1277
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1091
6. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1086
7. ^ a b c d e 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. șchiop
8. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 166
9. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 155
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ Cazacu, Boris (coord.) et al. (1967), Glosar dialectal. Oltenia, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 108
13. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. șchiop
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 11:5
15. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 442