ciupercă

Forms

ciupercă f (plural ciuperci)^[1] Regional variants are ciuparcă and ciupearcă, and an old plural ciuperce occurs beside ciuperci.^[2][3] Scriban places ciuparcă in Botoșani, Dorohoi and Bukovina and ciupearcă in Dolj.^[4]

Etymology

It is most likely borrowed from Bulgarian печурка (pečurka, “mushroom”) or Serbo-Croatian pečurka, with the consonants of the first two syllables swapped, the same metathesis as in the Bulgarian variant чепурка (čepurka).^[5][6][7] Tiktin explains the Slavic word as “a mushroom that is roasted”, from the verb Old Church Slavonic пекѫ (pekǫ, “to roast, bake”).^[8] The Slavic forms go back to Proto-Slavic *pečura, built on the dialectal South Slavic stem *peč- (“to bake, roast”).^[1]

DELR calls the origin uncertain: it thinks of an unattested Slavonic diminutive of the same word, with the metathesis perhaps made already in Slavic, which would also explain Hungarian cseperke and csöpörke.^[3] Others take the Romanian word from Hungarian: Cihac, Mândrescu and Drăganu, and MDA2 gives the Hungarian word as its etymon.^[9][2][10] Tamás finds csiperke a much closer match in sound than the Bulgarian forms, and notes that Romanian has no variants that keep the Slavic order of consonants; he leaves the question open until the spread and age of the variants are known.^[9] He takes the Szekler csuporka as a borrowing back from Romanian.^[9]

South of the Danube there are Aromanian peciurcã and Megleno-Romanian cinciupercă.^[5][11] The Aromanian form, without the metathesis, is from Bulgarian.^[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the personal name Ciupărcă in a document of 1537.^[3][8] As a common noun for the mushroom it appears in Ion Neculce's chronicle, with the old plural: „Zic unii să fi mâncat nişte ciuperce şi au murit” “Some say they had eaten some mushrooms and died”.^[6][8] MDA2 cites the same passage from Kogălniceanu's edition of the chronicles.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In some regions, mostly in Muntenia, the word is the general name of the edible and poisonous fungi, where other regions say burete; elsewhere it names one prized edible kind, the field mushroom (Agaricus campestris, A. arvensis).^[6][12] Scientific usage widened it to the whole group of plants without chlorophyll that spread by spores.^[7][2]

Shape gave the transferred senses: the wooden mushroom over which a stocking is stretched for darning, the thickened head of a rail (ciuperca șinei), and, in jest, an old crumpled hat or cap.^[7][2] The hat sense is also found in Hungarian;^[9] Tamás takes the two as independent developments.^[9] Scriban records a sense “a poor magazine or newspaper”, after the saying about things that spring up like mushrooms after rain.^[4] Two ironic expressions are common: doar n-am mâncat ciuperci! “I haven't gone mad!” and pagubă-n ciuperci! “no loss at all!”.^[7][8]

Timeline

• 1537 – the personal name Ciupărcă, the first record.^[3][8]
• 1801 – ciuperca in Klein's dictionary.^[13]
• 1825 – ciupercă “field mushroom”, with Hungarian tseperke gomba, in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[14]
• 1886 – ciupercă “mushroom, fungus” in Barcianu.^[15]
• 1895 – the diminutive ciupercuță.^[3]
• 1988 – ciupercărie “mushroom farm”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (in the plural) The fungi: organisms without chlorophyll that live as parasites or saprophytes and spread by spores;^[7][2][1] (singular) one of them, usually a fleshy cap on a stalk, a mushroom.^[7][2][1]
2. A wooden darning mushroom, over which a stocking is stretched to be mended.^[7][2]
3. (ironic) An old hat, often crumpled and flattened.^[7][16]
4. ciuperca șinei: the thickened upper part of a rail, on which the wheels run.^[7][2]

Word family

• ciupercărie
• ciupercuță

Related words

• Aromanian peciurcã
• Bulgarian печурка (pečurka)

Usage notes

A răsări ca ciupercile (după ploaie) means “to spring up in great numbers, all of a sudden”.^[17][18] The surname Ciupercă and the forms Ciupercescu and Ciupîrcă are formed on the word.^[19][1]

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 Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 424
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. ciupercă
4. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 291
5. ^ a b 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. ciupercă
6. ^ 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. ciupercă
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 191
8. ^ 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. ciupercă
9. ^ a b c d e f Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 236
10. ^ Mândrescu, Simion (1892), Elemente ungurești în limba română, București: Tipografia Carol Göbl, p. s.v. ciupercă
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 813
12. ^ Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 63
13. ^ 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. 336
14. ^ 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. 126
15. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 110
16. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. ciupercă
17. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. ciupercă
18. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. ciupercă
19. ^ Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. ciupercă