cizmă

Forms

cizmă f (plural cizme)^[1] Old and regional variants are cismă, cișmă and cijmă.^[2][3] The Bible of 1688 has the form cizmă in Deuteronomy 25:9: „Și va dezlega o cizmă a lui de la piciorul lui” “and shall loose his shoe from off his foot”.^[4]

Etymology

It is a Balkan word of Turkish origin, and the dictionaries disagree on the route by which it reached Romanian.^[3][5] DELR takes it as borrowed from Serbo-Croatian čizma (“boot”), or from Bulgarian чизма (čizma), later reinforced by Hungarian csizma, and lists those who held each view.^[3] DEX, MDA2, Wiktionary and Cihac give Hungarian as the source,^[6][2][1][7] and Scriban names Hungarian, Serbian and Bulgarian together.^[8] Ciorănescu derives it straight from Ottoman Turkish چزمه (çizme, “boot”),^[5] but DELR finds this less likely on phonetic grounds: a direct loan would have given ⟨*cizmea⟩.^[3]

The Hungarian word, recorded from 1492, is itself from Serbo-Croatian, which took it from the Ottoman word.^[9][10][11] Eren explains the Turkish word as a native derivative that replaced the older Turkic name of the boot.^[12] The Ottoman word spread through the Balkans: Albanian çizme comes from it too,^[9] and Ciorănescu compares Romani čisme.^[5] Polish ciżma and Slovak čižma were in turn borrowed from Hungarian.^[13][14] It also survives south of the Danube: Aromanian cizmă, which Papahagi derives from Turkish.^[5][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded from 1508, in the Romanian vocabulary of Slavonic documents.^[3][4] The derivative cizmar “bootmaker” follows in 1570.^[3] In the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of Mardarie (1649) cizmă glosses Old Church Slavonic сапогъ (sapogŭ).^[16]

Semantic evolution

The sense “high boot, reaching to the knee” has stayed the same; modern boots of rubber or plastic are called so too.^[6][3] In Moldavia the usual word was ciubotă.^[4] The expression prost ca o cizmă “stupid as a boot” means very stupid.^[6][2]

Regionally cizma cucului “the cuckoo's boot” names several plants: forking larkspur, the cowslip and wild orchids.^[2][17] The trade gave a family of words: cizmar, cizmaș and the workshop cizmărie.^[3][5]

Timeline

• 1508 – first record, in a Slavonic document.^[3][4]
• 1570 – cizmar “bootmaker”.^[3]
• 1649 – cizmă in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[16]
• c. 1650 – cizmaș “bootmaker”.^[3]
• 1688 – cizmă in the Bucharest Bible (Deuteronomy 25:9).^[4][2]
• 1766 – cizmărie “bootmaker's workshop”.^[3]
• 1857 – the verb cizmări “to make boots”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A boot of leather, rubber or plastic with a high shaft reaching to or above the knee.^[6][2][1]
2. (regional, botany) In cizma cucului and cizmele cucului: names of several wild plants, such as forking larkspur and cowslip.^[2]

Word family

• cizmar
• cizmaș
• cizmăreasă
• cizmăresc
• cizmări
• cizmărie
• cizmășel
• cizmuliță
• cizmuță

Related words

• ciubotă
• Hungarian csizma

Usage notes

Prost ca o cizmă “stupid as a boot” is a common simile for a very stupid person.^[6][18]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 427
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. cizmă
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. cizmă
5. ^ 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. cizmă
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 192
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 492
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 293
9. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 544
10. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
11. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
12. ^ Eren, Hasan (1999), Türk Dilinin Etimolojik Sözlüğü, Ankara: Bizim Büro, p. 94
13. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu, p. s.v. csizma
14. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó, p. s.v. csizma
15. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 372
16. ^ 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. cizmă
17. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. cizmă
18. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 444