coamă

Forms

coamă f (plural coame)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin coma (“hair of the head; mane; foliage”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word is from Ancient Greek κόμη (kómē, “hair of the head”).^[2][6]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian coamã, Megleno-Romanian coamă and Istro-Romanian comę.^[3][2][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian chioma, Occitan coma, Old Spanish coma and Portuguese coma.^[3][9][10] The Italian word continues the diminutive comula with metathesis.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Latin–Romanian–Hungarian Lexicon Marsilianum of about 1700, which glosses Latin iuba (“mane”) with it.^[2][12][13] MDA2's date of 1930 is the year of Tagliavini's edition of that glossary.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word meant the hair of the head, but its Romanian sense is first of all the long hair on the neck and back of an animal, above all the horse; the DA lists dozens of adjectives that describe a horse's mane.^[13][5] Of a person it is a long, thick head of hair, often in irony, and figuratively the thick foliage at the top of a tree.^[5][13][2]

The image of a ridge gave the senses “crest of a hill or mountain”, “top of a wall” and “ridge of a roof”.^[3][5][12] The DA compares the Slavic word Old Church Slavonic грива (griva), which also means both “mane” and “wooded ridge”.^[13] Regionally it also names the dorsal fins of a fish and the ridge tiles of a roof.^[14] Plant names are formed with it as well, such as coama-calului for field horsetail.^[4]

Timeline

• 1691–1697 – the derivatives comos “with a thick mane” and comușoară in Teodor Corbea's dictionary.^[2]
• c. 1700 – coamă glossing Latin iuba in the Lexicon Marsilianum, the first record of the noun.^[2][12]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon of Buda, which also records the forelock coamă de pe frunte.^[15]
• 1847 – stea comată “comet”, with the learned adjective comat.^[2]
• 1893 – încomat “maned” in Coșbuc.^[2]
• 1898 – comar, the straps over a horse's mane, in Damé.^[2]
• 1900 – the diminutive comiță.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mane: the long, thick hair growing on the neck or along the back of some animals.^[5][4][1]
2. Long hair grown on a person's head, especially a man's, often too long.^[5][4]
3. (figurative) The thick foliage at the top of a tree.^[5][4]
4. The long crest of a hill or mountain; a creastă.^[5][4]
5. The top of a wall; the ridge line where the two slopes of a roof meet.^[5][4]

Word family

• comar
• comiță
• comos
• comușoară
• încomat

Related words

• Aromanian coamã
• Latin coma

Usage notes

Horse breeders distinguish the coamă dublă, a mane that falls on both sides of the neck, and the forelock, coama de pe frunte.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c 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. coamă
3. ^ a b c d 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. coamă
4. ^ 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, 444
5. ^ 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. 199
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 74
8. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 99
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2071
10. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 33
11. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. chioma
12. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. coamă
13. ^ 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. coamă
14. ^ Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. s.v. coamă
15. ^ 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. 134