șpur

Forms

șpur m (plural șpuri)^[1] Variants are spur and the older spuriu, șpuriu.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spurius (“illegitimate child”), as MDA2, Wiktionary and Ștef, after N. Drăganu, explain it.^[2][3][4][1] Ștef compares Italian spurio.^[3] The REW lists the Romanian variant spuriu under the Latin word, after Capidan, together with Serbo-Croatian špure.^[5] Pușcariu (1926) took the Romanian word from that Serbo-Croatian word, which means a lamb born before its time.^[3] Binder (1932) proposed a Russian word meaning “abortion, bastard”.^[3] The Latin word was a legal term and is probably Etruscan.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Barcianu's dictionary of 1886 has spuriu for the illegitimate son.^[7] MDA2 dates șpur to the 1900 edition of the same dictionary.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word is a regionalism of the north of Transylvania and of Maramureș, where the ALRR records it only in the Săcel–Moisei–Borșa area.^[3] Scurtu thought the Năsăud region its centre: there it is the only word for an illegitimate child, with the derivatives șpurian, șpuroaică and răsșpuri “the bastards' bastards”.^[3] MDA2 records two transferred senses in the plant world: in the plural, the side shoots of maize, and in Transylvania a shoot on an apple branch that bears no fruit.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1886 – spuriu “illegitimate son” in Barcianu's dictionary.^[7]
• 1900 – șpur in the third edition of the same dictionary.^[2]
• 1969 – recorded in Maramureș by the regional linguistic atlas.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional, Transylvania, Maramureș) An illegitimate child, a bastard.^[2][3][1]
2. (regional, in the plural) The side shoots of maize.^[2][8]
3. (regional, Transylvania) A shoot on an apple branch that bears no fruit.^[2][8]

Related words

• Latin spurius

Usage notes

MDA2 lists two other words spelled șpur: a variant of șpor, and a regional neuter noun for the end of the spindle at the cogwheel of a water mill, recorded by the linguistic atlas in 1956 and compared with German Spule (“spool”).^[2][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1124
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. șpur
4. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. șpur
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8195
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. spurius
7. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 604
8. ^ a b c d Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. șpur