coarnă

Forms

coarnă f (plural coarne)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *corna, the neuter plural of Latin cornum (“cornelian cherry”) taken as a feminine singular.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu treats it instead as a Romanian derivative of corn, the name of the tree, which is itself cornus (“cornel tree”).^[6] Tiktin puts it under the tree name too, and cites the DA for the Latin plural.^[7]

The word is also Aromanian: Aromanian coarnã.^[2][8][1] According to the DA, the other Romance languages have only derivatives of the Latin word for the fruit.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Romanian–Latin glossary Anonymus Caransebesiensis of about 1650, where korne renders Latin cornum.^[2][4][5] Tiktin dates that glossary to about 1670.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word names the red, sour fruit of the cornel tree (Cornus mas), which is eaten and dried in the sun like cherries and also distilled into brandy.^[5][3] Its shrivelled skin gave the phrase a se usca ca o coarnă “to dry up like a cornel”, to become very wrinkled, and an older câte coarne-n putină “as many as cornels in a tub” meant “a great many”.^[4][5]

From the shape of the fruit, poamă coarnă or coarnă is also a table-grape variety with long, thick-skinned, black or yellowish-green berries.^[3][5][4] Regionally the name is given to a sedge (Carex curvula), to ergot of rye and to the grapevine itself.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1650 – korne glossing Latin cornum in Anonymus Caransebesiensis, the first record.^[2][4]
• 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, with Hungarian som.^[9]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon of Buda as the fruit, with German Kornelkirsche.^[10]
• 19th century – the grape variety poamă coarnă in Alecsandri's folk poems.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. cornelian cherry: the edible, red and sourish fruit of the corn tree.^[3][4][1]
2. (singular) A variety of table grape with large, oblong, black or yellowish-green berries and a thick skin.^[3][4][1]

Related words

• corn
• Aromanian coarnã
• Latin cornum

Usage notes

The plural coarne is shared with corn “horn”, so in the old texts coarne is usually the horns, not the fruit.^[6][12] NODEX writes the grape variety and the fruit as two headwords, both from Latin corna; they are one word.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. corn
3. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 199
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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. coarnă
6. ^ 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. corn
7. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. coarnă
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. coarnă
9. ^ 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. 337
10. ^ 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. 140
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 476
12. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 68:36
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. coarnă