bătătură

Forms

bătătură f (plural bătături)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin battitūra (“a beating”), as Candrea and Densusianu, CADE and DEX have it, and DELR gives this view first.^[2][3][4] Romance has the same formation: Italian battitura, French batture, and Portuguese batedura.^[3][1] The noun belongs to battuō (“to beat, pound”).^[1][5] Aromanian bãtãturã (“corn, callus”) is also traced to Latin by Papahagi.^[6]

Tiktin, the DA and Scriban instead derive it within the language: from Romanian bate + -ătură, and DER lists it among the derivatives of the verb, comparing Medieval Latin battetura (“beating”), cited by Du Cange.^[2][7][8][9] MDA2 also gives the Romanian formation.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is in Coresi's Tetraevanghel of 1567–1568.^[2] Tiktin's first is from the Palia de la Orăștie (1581–1582), and the Anonymus Caransebesiensis of about 1650 glosses it with Latin “percussio”, a blow.^[7][8][10]

Semantic evolution

The old abstract sense, the act of beating or knocking, a pulse or the blowing of the wind, is now regional or rare.^[8][10][11] From the trampling of ground came the beaten earth before a house, where no grass grows, and by extension the yard of a peasant house;^[8][7][4] Tiktin adds the yard of a village inn, used as a dancing floor in summer.^[8][7][4] MDA2 records the names of a folk dance and its tune from that use.^[10] Skin hardened by rubbing or pressure gave the sense “callus, corn”, and with it the phrase a călca pe cineva pe bătătură “to tread on someone's corns, to touch a sore spot”.^[7][4] In weaving it is the weft, the threads beaten in with the batten across the warp: in Eminescu a coat „era mai mult urzeală decât bătătură” “was more warp than weft”.^[7][11]

The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss Slavonic утокъ “weft” with it.^[12]

Timeline

• 1567–1568 – the first record, in Coresi's Tetraevanghel.^[2]
• 1581–1582 – in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[7]
• c. 1650 – “blow, beating” in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[10][8]
• 1660 – “weft” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1691–1697 – the derivative bătători “to tread down hard” in Teodor Corbea's dictionary.^[2]
• 1825 – “weft” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[13]
• 1845 – the verb bătătura “to tread down”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Trodden ground, especially in front of a house; by extension the yard of a peasant house.^[4][1]
2. A thickening of the skin of the palms or soles; a callus, a corn.^[4][1]
3. The weft of a woven fabric.^[4][14][1]
4. (popular) A knock at a door or window; a breath of wind.^[11][10]

Word family

• bătători

Related words

• bate
• Aromanian bãtãturã

Usage notes

MDA2 has a separate regional bătătură, of unknown origin, a name of a fish recorded in 1947.^[10] The phrase a călca pe cineva pe bătătură (or pe bătături) means “to annoy someone where it hurts”.^[4][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. bate
3. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 146
4. ^ 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. 1, 96
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 202
7. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. bătătură
8. ^ 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. bătătură
9. ^ 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. bate
10. ^ 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, 187
11. ^ a b c d Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. bătătură
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.)
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. bătătură