țestoasă

Forms

țestoasă f (plural țestoase)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Romanian țestos (“covered with a shell”) used as a noun in the feminine, first in the phrase broască țestoasă, literally “shelled frog”.^[2][3][4][1] The adjective is from Romanian țest (“earthenware baking lid; shell”) with the suffix -os.^[5][2] That noun continues Latin testum (“earthenware lid”), itself from testa (“piece of burned clay”).^[5][1] Compare the Latin name of the animal, testūdō (“tortoise”), formed on the same noun.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The feminine țestoasă is recorded in 1649 in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, where it glosses the Slavonic words for the tortoise, and the other 17th-century lexicons use it the same way.^[6][3] In 1829 the Albina Românească reported an island where travellers found „o mulțime de țestoase” “a multitude of turtles”, the noun used on its own.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The noun names the tortoise or turtle, the animal with a shell, and stands beside the fuller phrase broască țestoasă.^[4][5][1] Dimitrescu's dictionary of recent words records two new uses of the 1990s: from 1992 a Ninja Turtle of the cartoons, and in 1995, in students' slang, the police vans that blocked a demonstration.^[7]

Timeline

• 1649 – țestoasă glossing the Slavonic word for the tortoise in Mardarie's lexicon.^[6][3]
• 1660s–1680s – the same gloss in the other Slavonic–Romanian lexicons.^[6]
• 1829 – the plural țestoase “turtles” in the Albina Românească.^[2]
• 1992 – a Ninja Turtle.^[7]
• 1995 – students' slang for a police van.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tortoise or turtle, a reptile protected by a shell; also called broască țestoasă: O țestoasă bătrână dormea la soare.^[1][4][5]
2. (slang, 1990s) A police van, in students' slang.^[7]

Related words

• țestos
• țest
• broască

Usage notes

In the standard language the animal is usually called broască țestoasă, with țestoasă as the short form.^[4][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. țestos
3. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. țestos
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1161
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1331
6. ^ a b c 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. țestoasă
7. ^ a b c d Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. țestoasă
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 650