bulbuca

Forms

bulbuca (first-person singular present bulbuc, third-person singular present bulbucă, past participle bulbucat) 1st conjugation^[1][2] Regional variants are bolboca and the fourth-conjugation bulbuci and bolboci.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[6] DEX, the DA, Tiktin and Ciorănescu take it as formed from Romanian bulbuc (“bubble”) + -a.^{[2][3][4][7][8]} Ciorănescu treats the noun as an expressive creation, in which a root for roundness, as in bulla (“bubble”) and bulbus (“bulb”), meets an imitation of the sound of bubbling, as in bâlbâi.^[7]

Candrea and Densusianu derived the verb instead from Vulgar Latin *volvicō (“to roll”), from volvō (“to roll, turn”), with assimilation of /v/ to /b/; the sense may have been coloured by the Latin word for “bulb”.^[9][6] The REW and the CADE accept this, and the REW compares Catalan bolcar (“to wrap up”) and Spanish volcar (“to overturn”).^[10][11][6] Pericle Papahagi, followed by Pascu, linked it with the Latin word for “bulb”.^[7] Cihac took the noun from Slavic, comparing Polish bąbel (“blister”).^[7][6] The verb survives south of the Danube as Aromanian mbulbucare (“to have a puffed-up face”).^[6][12][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the participle bulbucat “bulging” in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, a Romanian–Latin glossary dated about 1650.^[6] Tiktin's first quotation is from Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints (1683): a cauldron of molten lead, „bulbucind” “bubbling”.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Two groups of senses go back to the image of a round swelling: water that throws up bubbles (bulbuci), and eyes that bulge and stare.^[3][2] The Lexicon of Buda (1825) also gives a figurative “to flare up in anger”.^[3][5] The participle bulbucat is used as an adjective, “bulging, round”, especially of eyes: Eminescu writes of „bulbucații ochi de broască” “bulging frog's eyes”.^[3] Today the transitive and reflexive sense “to goggle” leads DEX's definition.^[2]

The family includes bulboacă “a deep place in a river where the water swirls”, recorded from 1686 and perhaps as a personal name in 1428.^[6]

Timeline

• 1428 – possibly the personal name behind bulboacă, the deep pool of a river.^[6]
• c. 1650 – the participle bulbucat in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[6]
• 1683 – bulbucind “bubbling” in Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints.^[4]
• 1686 – bulboacă “whirlpool” in Dosoftei.^[6]
• 1825 – the verb in the Lexicon of Buda, with the figurative sense “to get angry”.^[5][3]
• 1830 – the variant bolbora “to goggle” (as the participle bolborat).^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive, of the eyes) to open wide in surprise, fear or anger; to goggle, holba: Copilul bulbucă ochii la el. “The child stared at him wide-eyed.”^[2][1]
2. (intransitive and reflexive, of water) to form bubbles, to bubble.^[2][5]
3. (reflexive) to bulge, forming a rounded swelling.^[5][3]
4. (reflexive, figurative, of people) to get angry.^[5][8]

Word family

• bulboacă
• bulbucătură
• bulbuceală

Related words

• Aromanian mbulbucare

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 124
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. bulbuca
4. ^ 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. bulbuca
5. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 257
6. ^ 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. bulbuca
7. ^ 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. bulbuc
8. ^ a b Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. bulbuca
9. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. bulbuca
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9444
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. bulbuca
12. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 115