cățea

Forms

cățea f (plural cățele, masculine equivalent câine)^[1] The Anonymus Caransebesiensis spells it Kăcze: „Kăcze = canis femella”.^[2] Klein's dictionary of 1801 writes Catzeâ, glossed “Faemina canis”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin catella (“little bitch”), the feminine of catellus (“puppy”).^{[4][5][6][7][8][1]} The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian cãtsauã and Megleno-Romanian cățăuă.^{[4][9][10][11]} Portuguese cadela has the same sense “female dog”, while the Old Italian, French, Occitan, Catalan and Spanish continuations meant “female puppy”.^[5][1] It is the feminine counterpart of cățel.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to a document of 1625.^[5][6] The Anonymus Caransebesiensis glosses Kăcze with Latin “canis femella”, and Grigore Ureche's chronicle says that Moldavia was named „pre numele unii cățeale, ce-i zicea Molda” “after the name of a bitch called Molda”.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

Paired with cățel “puppy”, the word first meant a female puppy, as in the other Romance languages;^[2][5] DELR and the DA mark this sense as old, and the diminutive cățelușă has replaced it.^[2][5] Paired with câine it means “female dog”, as Portuguese cadela does.^[2]

As a term of abuse it is used of a wicked or depraved woman.^[12][6] Cățea de vreme is “foul weather”.^[6][12] Military slang turned it into “machine gun”, and general slang into “mouth”.^[12][13][14] In the countryside cățeaua is also a peasant dance and the name of children's games.^[7][6][4]

Timeline

• 1625 – the first record, in a document.^[5][6]
• 1660 – cățea glosses Slavonic “bitch” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1801 – Catzeâ in Klein's dictionary.^[3]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda lists cățea with the synonym gudă.^[16]
• 1825 – the derived verb cățela “to whelp”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. bitch: a female dog.^[12][7][1]
2. (derogatory) A wicked or depraved woman.^[12][1]
3. (military slang) A machine gun.^[12][14]
4. (slang) The mouth.^[14]
5. A peasant dance resembling the brâu, and its tune.^[7][6]

Word family

• cățelușă

Related words

• cățel
• câine
• Aromanian cãtsauã
• Latin catella

Usage notes

A da pe cineva cățeaua is “to pull someone about by the hair”, and Moldavian de-a cățeaua means “askew”.^[6][7] A proverb says „Cățeaua de pripă își naște cățeii fără ochi” “a bitch in a hurry bears blind pups”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cățea
3. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 328
4. ^ 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. cățea
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. cățel
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cățea
7. ^ 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, 336
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ 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, 61
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 276
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 66
12. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 161
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 374
14. ^ a b c Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. cățea
15. ^ 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. cățea
16. ^ 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.), p. 106