cartof

Forms

cartof m (plural cartofi)^[1] Regional and old variants are cartoafă (eastern Muntenia, southern Moldavia), cartofă (the north) and cartoflă (old, Moldavia).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Kartoffel (“potato”), as DER, DELR, MDA2, DEX and Tiktin agree.^{[4][2][5][3][6]} Borcia lists it among the German loanwords of Romanian, beside the word used by the Germans of Transylvania, Erdapfel (“earth apple”).^[7] DELR also cites a view that takes it from Russian картофель (kartofelʹ), and Scriban traces it through Russian.^[2][8] The variant cartoflă comes from Polish kartofla and the Ukrainian word of the same form.^[2]

The German word arose by dissimilation from older Tartuffel and Tartoffel; a Swiss form Cartoffel is recorded in the first half of the 17th century.^[9][10] These come from Italian tartufolo (“truffle”) and its regional forms, a name for the truffle that passed to the potato, which grows in the earth and looks like it.^[9][10] DELR derives the Italian word from tartufo and Latin terrae *tūfer, with the Italic dialect form of tūber (“tuber”).^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1793, in Predetici, in the form cartoflă;^[6][2] DELR also dates cartoflă to 1793 and the form cartof to 1835.^[6][2] MDA2's year of 1920 is the first volume of Dacoromania.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Șăineanu and the CADE note that the plant reached the Romanian lands from Austria at the beginning of the 19th century.^[11][12] The word competed with many regional names, and Costinescu in 1870 still explained cartof by picioca, crumpene, barabula and aluna de pământ.^[13] DELR records the derivatives cartoflar “potato eater” (1844), cartoflărie “potato field” (1845) and cartofior (1928), and cartoafă also for the dahlia (1875).^[2] Romanian passed the word on to Bulgarian картоф (kartof).^[14][1]

Timeline

• 1793 – first record, as cartoflă, in Predetici.^[6][2]
• 1835 – the form cartof.^[2]
• 1844 – cartoflar “potato eater”.^[2]
• 1845 – cartoflărie “potato field”.^[2]
• 1875 – cartoafă.^[2]
• 1928 – the diminutive cartofior.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The potato plant (Solanum tuberosum), with white or violet flowers and underground stems ending in edible tubers rich in starch.^[3][5][1]
2. The tuber of this plant, eaten and used as fodder;^[3] zahăr de cartofi “glucose made from potato starch”.^[3]
3. cartof dulce: the sweet potato, batat.^[3]

Word family

• cartofior
• cartoflar
• cartoflărie

Related words

• trufă
• German Kartoffel

Usage notes

The potato has many regional names: barabulă, picioică, crumpenă, bandraburcă, alună-de-pământ, măr-de-pământ, pară-de-pământ and others.^[12][5][3] In the plural cartoafe is also a regional name of the dahlia.^[5]

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 k l m n 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. cartof
3. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 149
4. ^ 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. cartof
5. ^ 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, 303
6. ^ 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. cartof
7. ^ Borcia, Ioan (1903–1904), Deutsche Sprachelemente im Rumänischen, Leipzig (in Weigand, Zehnter Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig), p. 44
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 235
9. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
10. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 477
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 108
12. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. cartof
13. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 163
14. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 2, 255