boș

Forms

boș n (plural boașe)^[1] Dosoftei has a masculine plural boși: „Având 2 chile la amândoi boșii” “having two hernias on both testicles”.^[2][3] The feminine singular boașă is the older head form.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is from Romanian boașă (“testicle”), with a singular remade after their shared plural.^[4][5] The word has cognates in all four branches: Aromanian boashã, Megleno-Romanian boș and Istro-Romanian boș.^[6][7][8]

DEX, MDA2, the DA and DELR derive it from Latin: DEX from Latin bursa (“purse”), the DA, MDA2 and DELR from an adjective Vulgar Latin *bursea based on it, which the DA spells with ⟨y⟩.^[9][5][4][3] The Latin noun is a late word from Ancient Greek βύρσα (búrsa, “hide, wineskin”).^[1][4] DELR notes that the Latin word is rare and means only “hide”, but the Romance languages show the sense “purse”, which led to “testicle, scrotum”, as in Italian borsa, Sardinian bussa, French bourse, Catalan borsa and Spanish bolsa.^[4] For the change of /rs/ to /ʃ/ it compares sus and jos from Latin sursum and deorsum.^[4]

Ciorănescu calls the word of unknown origin: the etymon proposed by Diez is impossible, and Pușcariu's adjective is not satisfactory either.^[6] He considers Turkish boş (“empty”), but the word's age (it is in Dosoftei) and its identical sense in all the dialects tell against it.^[6] Tiktin finds the Latin derivation unconvincing, and NODEX and Șăineanu give the origin as unknown.^[2][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1543.^[2] DELR's first record is the form boașă “testicle” in a chronograph of about 1660, and the 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss the plural boașele from about 1660 on.^[4][12] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has the singular boașă and the plural boașe.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

Besides “testicle”, the old form boașă means the large intestine in southern Transylvania and Mehedinți, and in Brașov a gut filled with the stuffing left over from sausages.^[4][3][5] The DA reports that the plural boașe was used as a more polite word than the coarse coaie.^[3] Plant names use it too, such as boașele-popii for birthwort.^[5][3]

Derivatives name a melon and a hernia: boșar, a melon with a green rind, from 1883, and boșitură “hernia”, from 1760–1770.^[4] boșorog “suffering from a hernia” seems to Ciorănescu a jocular blend of boașe and olog.^[6]

Timeline

• 1543 – the first record according to Tiktin.^[2]
• c. 1660 – boașă “testicle” in a chronograph.^[4]
• c. 1660 – boașele in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – boașă and boașe in the Bucharest Bible.^[14][5]
• 1760-1770 – boșitură “hernia”.^[4]
• 1883 – boșar “a kind of melon”, in Delavrancea.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (popular, mostly in the plural boașe) a testicle.^[9][15]
2. (regional, as boașă) the large intestine.^[5][4]
3. (construction) a slanting beam set under a wall.^[16][11]

Word family

• boșar
• boșorog
• boșorogi

Related words

• boașă
• Aromanian boashã

Usage notes

MDA2 lists a separate, dated boș “Boche”, the French slur for the Germans in the First World War, from French boche.^[15][17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. boș
3. ^ a b c d e 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. boașă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. boașă
5. ^ 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, 220
6. ^ a b c d 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. boașe
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 214
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 203
9. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 114
10. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. boș
11. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 74
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, p. s.v. boașele
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. A doua leage 25:11
14. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Iezechiil 23:20
15. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 236
16. ^ Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. boș
17. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 190