cămașă

Forms

cămașă f (plural cămăși)^[1] Variants are cămașe, cămeașă, the Moldavian cămeșă and cămeșe, and chemeșă, chimeșă in Banat and Transylvania.^[2][3] Dosoftei writes cămeșe.^[4] Weigand noted 45 dialect forms of the word.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin camisia (“shirt”).^{[6][2][3][7][1][8]} The Latin word appears late, first in Jerome, and is held to be a borrowing from Gaulish or from Germanic, Wiktionary deriving it from Proto-West Germanic *hamiþi (“shirt”).^[9][1][10] Weigand derived the Romanian word from a form with long ⟨ī⟩.^[5]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian cãmeashã and Megleno-Romanian cămeașă.^{[6][2][11][1]} Ciorănescu compares Albanian këmishë, and the Romance cognates include Dalmatian camaisa, Italian camicia, French chemise, Spanish camisa and Portuguese camisa.^[6][2][1] Ciorănescu notes that the word has recently moved from the declension in ⟨-ă⟩ to that in ⟨-e⟩, as all words ending in ⟨-șe⟩ and ⟨-je⟩ have.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The plural cămășile is in Coresi's Psalter of 1570, and the Psaltirea Scheiană of the 1570s also has the word.^[12][4] DELR dates it to 1573–1583, and MDA2 to Moxa's chronicle of 1620.^[2][3] The sense was the garment worn next to the skin.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

From the garment the word passed to many coverings: a cover for furniture or the altar table, a folder or the second leaf of a sheet of paper, the skin of an onion, the chaff of grain, the crust on wine, and the membrane that may cover a newborn's head.^[6][4] In popular speech it is also the placenta.^[7][13] In engineering it is a lining or casing of a cylinder or other part.^[7]

Many proverbs use it: tot îi mai aproape cămeșa decât sumanu “the shirt is still closer than the coat” means that one's own interest comes first.^[4] Cămașa de forță is the straitjacket, and a lua cuiva și cămașa de pe el is to strip someone of everything.^[7]

Timeline

• 1570 – cămășile in Coresi's Psalter.^[12]
• 1573–1583 – DELR's first record.^[2]
• 1582 – the diminutive cămășuie.^[2]
• 1620 – cămașă in Moxa's chronicle, MDA2's first record.^[3]
• c. 1660 – cămașă in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1703 – the augmentative cămeșoi.^[2]
• 1822 – the diminutive cămășuță.^[2]
• 1967 – the verb cămășui “to line with concrete or metal”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shirt: a garment of linen, silk or the like worn next to the skin on the upper body;^[7][3] cămașă de noapte “nightgown”, cămașă de forță “straitjacket”.^[7][3]
2. A thin membrane or covering of various things;^[7] (popular) the placenta.^[7]
3. The inner lining or casing of an object, usually a cylinder.^[7]
4. (in cămașa-broaștei) A freshwater green alga forming a net.^[7]

Word family

• cămășcioară
• cămășoară
• cămășui
• cămășuială
• cămășuică
• cămășuță
• cămășoi

Related words

• Aromanian cãmeashã
• Latin camisia

Usage notes

A rămâne în cămașă means “to lose everything”, and își dă și cămașa de pe el is said of someone generous to a fault.^[7][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. cămașă
3. ^ 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, 323
4. ^ 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. cămașă
5. ^ a b Weigand, Gustav (1909), Linguistischer Atlas des dacorumänischen Sprachgebietes, Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth
6. ^ a b c d e 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. cămașă
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 157
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1550
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. chemise
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 57
12. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 21:19
13. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. cămașă
14. ^ 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. cămașă