cioară

Forms

cioară f (plural ciori)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed: Ciorănescu calls it of unknown origin, and Wiktionary too.^[2][1] DELR treats it as a substrate word and compares Albanian sorrë (“crow”), with the same correspondence of Romanian /tʃ/ to Albanian /s/ as in căciulă beside kësulë and ciută beside sutë.^[3] DEX and the DLRM also compare the Albanian word, and NODEX labels it native.^[4][5][6] Demiraj derives the Albanian word from an Indo-European root meaning “black, dark”.^[7] DELR gives two older proposals for the substrate form: a relative of Latin cornīx (“crow”) and Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē), or a word for “black” (Mann, Orel).^[3]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian cioarã (also țoară) and Megleno-Romanian cioară.^[2][8] A second explanation sees an onomatopoeic word imitating the bird's call, shared with dialects of Italy: Friulian çore, Neapolitan ciàula, Sicilian ciaula.^[2][9][1] Meyer-Lübke set up a popular Latin *čaola for these (REW 2449), but DELR objects that Romanian /r/ cannot come from Latin /l/ here.^[3][10] Ciorănescu also notes the chance likeness of a Persian and a Cuman word for “falcon”, and calls a direct link unlikely.^[2] Hasdeu took it for a Dacian word; this is history of scholarship, not the current view.^[2]

The slur for Roma owes something to Romani čor (“poor wretch; thief”), according to Graur and Tiktin.^[2][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears first in a name: the personal name Čorra in a document of 1442.^[3][11] A river named Cioraca follows in 1556.^[3] In Romanian texts the bird is named in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the late 17th century, which gloss Slavonic врана “crow” with it.^[12] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it in Jeremiah 3:2: „În căi ai șăzut ca o cioară pustiită” “By the ways you sat like a forsaken crow”.^[11][13][14]

Semantic evolution

Romanian uses the one name for several kinds of crow, the hooded crow, the carrion crow and the rook, often with a defining word: cioară-sură, cioară-neagră, cioară-de-câmpie.^[9][14] The plural turned up in curses and oaths, Știe-vă cioarele! “to the devil with you!”, and in Ce ciorile? “what the devil?”.^[11][4][2]

From the black bird came a nickname for Roma, which Tiktin quotes from Filimon; in present-day slang it is an ethnic slur.^[11][15] The DA adds other nicknames: for the Devil, for the Transylvanian Saxons, and a name for dogs, as well as a children's game.^[9] DEX now gives a milder sense, a dark-haired, swarthy person.^[4] The DA reports that Polish ciura and Czech coura are thought to be borrowed from Romanian.^[9]

The family is old: ciorcușă “magpie” is recorded about 1650, cioresc “of crows” (in plant names such as ceapă ciorească) in 1825, ciorăitură “cawing” in 1871 and ciorăi “to caw” in 1885.^[3]

Timeline

• 1442 – the personal name Čorra, the first record.^[3][11]
• 1556 – Cioraca, a river name.^[3]
• c. 1650 – ciorcușă “magpie”, in the Banat.^[3]
• 1672-1673 – glosses Slavonic врана “crow” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – cioară in the Bucharest Bible (Jeremiah 3:2).^[11][13][14]
• 1825 – cioresc and the diminutive ciorcuță.^[3]
• 1871 – ciorăitură “cawing”.^[3]
• 1885 – ciorăi “to caw”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. crow: any of several birds of the crow family with black or grey plumage and a strong conical beak (genus Corvus), smaller than the raven.^[4][14]
2. (derogatory, ethnic slur) A Roma person.^[2][15][11]
3. (colloquial) A nickname for a dark-haired, swarthy person.^[4]

Word family

• ciorăi
• ciorăitură
• ciorărie
• cioresc
• cioroaică
• cioroi
• cioarcă

Related words

• Aromanian cioarã
• Albanian sorrë

Usage notes

Fixed expressions include cât cioara în par “for a very short while”, ce ciorile? or cum ciorile? “what (how) the devil?”, and the proverb a da vrabia din mână pe cioara din par “to give up the sparrow in the hand for the crow on the stake”.^[4][11][16] The usual plural is ciori; a plural cioare is northern.^[16][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. cioară
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. cioară
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 185
5. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. cioară
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. cioară
7. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (1997), Albanische Etymologien: Untersuchungen zum albanischen Erbwortschatz, Amsterdam / Atlanta: Rodopi (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 7)
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 358
9. ^ a b c d 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. cioară
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2449
11. ^ 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. cioáră
12. ^ a b 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. cioară
13. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ier 3:2
14. ^ 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, 401
15. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. cioară
16. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 280