boar

Forms

boar m (plural boari)^[1] Variants are bouar, remade after bou, buhar and, in Banat, boier, formed after oier.^[2][3][4] Rare feminines are boăriță and boăreasă “cowgirl”.^[2][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin boārius (“cowherd”), also written bovārius, an adjective “of cattle” formed on bōs (“ox, cow”).^{[6][3][2][1][7]} Candrea and Densusianu suppose that the Latin word first gave ⟨*buariu⟩, which was then remade after bou.^[5] Tiktin allows that it may instead be a Romanian formation on the word for ox, and Wiktionary also analyses it as the noun with the suffix -ar.^[4][1]

Its Romance cognates include Italian boaro, Old French boier, Catalan boyer, Spanish boyero and Portuguese boieiro; French bouvier was remade after bœuf.^[6][7] The corresponding Aromanian buyear is derived by Papahagi from the word for ox, after the pattern of the word for shepherd.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is from 1612, in a document quoted in Ioan Bogdan's glossary.^[4][3] The word is also in the glossary of Caransebeș, and the Moldavian law code of 1646 names herdsmen and cowherds together: „Văcarii și boarii... pasc cirezi” “cowherds and ox-herds… graze herds”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is a herdsman of oxen.^[2][3] In the Wallachian plain it came to mean an owner of oxen, and in older use it also named the collector of the tax on cattle.^[2][3][4] As the popular name of a constellation, the herdsman Boötes, it is probably a translation of French bouvier.^[2][9] The word lives on in folk poetry and in surnames such as Boar and Boariu in Maramureș.^[9][1]

Timeline

• 1612 – first record, in a document quoted in Bogdan's glossary.^[4][3]
• 1646 – boarii “the cowherds” in the Moldavian law code.^[2]
• 1712 – a peasant boar cu boi “owner of oxen” in a document published by Iorga.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cowherd, a herdsman who takes the oxen to pasture.^[10][3][1]
2. (Muntenia) An owner of oxen.^[3][2]
3. (obsolete) A collector of the tithe on oxen.^[3][4]
4. (astronomy, popular) The constellation Boötes.^[3][9]

Related words

• bou
• Aromanian buyear

Usage notes

DEX 2009 lists the word under the variant bouar.^[11] A separate boar is an old variant of bour “aurochs”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. boar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 219
4. ^ 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. boar
5. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. boar
6. ^ a b 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. boar
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1180
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 225
9. ^ a b c Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. boár
10. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 104
11. ^ DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 109