codru

Forms

codru m (plural codri)^[1] A regional variant crod is recorded in Ialomița.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *codrum, a form of Latin quadrum (“square”) that is not recorded as such; the Late Latin codra “public square” in the glossaries and the names Codratus and Quodratus in inscriptions of the Danube provinces show the same vowel.^{[2][4][5][6][1]} The Latin noun comes from quadrus (“square”), from quattuor (“four”).^[1] The change of /kʷa/ to /ko/ instead of the expected /pa/ is not explained;^[4][7] Ciorănescu reviews the debate.^[4][7] The sense “piece” is old: Latin quadra already meant a slice of bread, and Occitan caire has the same senses “piece of bread” and “plot of land”.^[2][4][6] Tiktin also allows quadrāns (“a quarter”).^[8]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian codru, Megleno-Romanian codru and Istro-Romanian codru, south of the Danube mostly meaning a piece of bread or pie, a village square or a mountain.^{[2][9][10][11]} Albanian kodër (“hill”) is close in form and sense;^[1][4] Wiktionary takes it from the same Latin word.^[1][4] Miklosich, Hasdeu, Philippide and Brâncuș instead saw a substrate word shared with Albanian, and Poruciuc analyses it as a substrate compound, an idea DELR finds problematic.^[2] Scriban compared Old Church Slavonic крада (krada, “pyre”), a view DELR records without support.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a document of 1495.^[2][8] In the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century it means “mountain”: Coresi's psalter has „rădicai ochii miei în codri, de unde vine ajutoriu mie” “I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help comes” (Psalm 120:1).^[12][8][13]

Semantic evolution

Ciorănescu takes the Latin word as “a part of something divided in four”, whence “piece” of any whole; a 1608 deed still divides an estate into codri “plots”, and a verb codri “to divide land into plots” is recorded in 1672.^[4][8][2] From codru de pădure “a piece of the forest” came the modern sense “forest”, first a part of a woodland, then a large, old, dense forest.^[2][7][6] The old sense “mountain” is perhaps due to the Slavic word for mountain, which also means forest, as Pușcariu thought;^[2][7] Candrea and Densusianu allowed Albanian influence.^[2][7]

In modern Romanian the forest sense dominates, with folk phrases from the life of the outlaws: hoț de codru “highwayman”, a se duce în codru “to become an outlaw”.^[8][12] The sense “piece” lives on in codru de pâine “hunk of bread”.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1495 – the first record, in a document.^[2][8]
• early 16th century – codru and codri “mountain(s)” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[12][13]
• 1527 – the place name Codreș‹ti›, the first trace of codresc.^[2]
• 1546 – Codrean as a personal name.^[2]
• 1608 – codru “plot of land” in a deed.^[8]
• 1672 – the verb codri “to divide into plots”.^[2]
• 1760–1770 – the diminutive codricel.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large, dense, old forest.^[5][12][1]
2. A large hunk of bread, maize porridge or the like: un codru de pâine.^[5][12][1]
3. (regional) A plot of land;^[12][2][8] (old) a mountain, a wooded mountain.^[12][2][8]

Word family

• codrean
• codreancă
• codresc
• codri
• codricel
• codrișor
• codruleț
• codruț

Related words

• Aromanian codru
• Albanian kodër
• Latin quadrum

Usage notes

Ca în codru means “freely, as one pleases” or “very loudly”: Strigă ca în codru.^[5][12] DEX and DER keep the forest and the piece of bread under one word from Latin; ȘDU separates them as two words, the forest compared with Albanian and the piece with Latin quadra.^[5][4][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t 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. codru
3. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 312
4. ^ 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. codru
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 202
6. ^ a b c 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. codru
7. ^ a b c d e Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 384
8. ^ 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. codru
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 302
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 75
11. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula, p. s.v. códru
12. ^ 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, 454
13. ^ a b 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 10:1