brăcire

Forms

brăcire f (plural brăciri)^[1] Regional variants are brăcile (Apuseni Mountains), brăcină (Transylvania), brăciră (Mehedinți), brecire (Vâlcea) and brăcele (Muntenia).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin bracīle (“belt for breeches”), a derivative of brāca (“breeches”).^[2][4][1] Its only Romance cognate is Old Sardinian brakile.^[2][5] It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian bărțire.^[2] Candrea and Densusianu explain ⟨brăcile⟩ by dissimilation of the second /r/, and DELR derives the forms with /n/ and /l/ in the same way.^[6][2] The variant brăcie continues the Latin plural bracīlia, according to the DA and the REW.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825, with the sense “belt”.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The word names a long narrow woollen belt, wound several times around the waist, of Oltenia, Banat and south-western Transylvania.^[2][8][3] Tiktin cites Marian on the midwife who girds the newborn with the brăciri.^[7] In the plural it also names the chains that hold the tailboard of a cart.^[3][7] Ciorănescu holds that Serbo-Croatian bračunar (“measuring rod”) comes from Romanian.^[4]

Timeline

• 1825 – brăcire and brăcie in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[2][7]
• 1885 – brăcele “belts” .^[2]
• 1888 – brăcier “belt”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional, often plural) A narrow woollen girdle or belt, worn by men and women.^[3][9][1]
2. (regional, plural) The chains that hold the tailboard of a cart.^[3][7]

Word family

• dezbrăcina

Related words

• brace
• brăcinar
• Latin bracīle

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. brace
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 241
4. ^ 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. brăcire
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1258
6. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. brăcire
7. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. brăcire
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. brăcire
9. ^ Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. brăcire