copac

Forms

copac m (plural copaci)^[1] The older form is copaci or copaciu, still used in Muntenia and other regions: a text of 1625 has „fiind copacii înălțați pre lângă drum” “the trees being tall along the road”, and Varlaam has „un copaciu frumos și cu umbra deasă” “a fine tree with thick shade”.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[5] The old form was copaci, the present form being a singular rebuilt from the plural.^[4][5][1] Scriban compares papuc.^[6] The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian cupaci (“oak; dense oak wood”), Megleno-Romanian cupaci (“tree; log; oak”) and Istro-Romanian copaț (“bush, thicket”).^[4][5][7]

The usual view links it with Albanian kopaç (“trunk, log”).^[4][1] Cihac, Densusianu, the DA and Scriban take the Romanian word from Albanian; the DA argues that the loan is old because it is found in all the dialects.^[4][2][6] Tiktin, CADE and DEX only compare the Albanian word.^[4][8] DELR treats it as a substrate word shared with Albanian, first meaning a cut trunk or log; following Russu, it places it on the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *kep-/kop- (“to cut”), beside Ancient Greek κόπτω (kóptō, “to cut”) and Lithuanian kapóti (“to chop”).^[4]

Ciorănescu finds the Albanian loan insufficient.^[5] He suggests the root of Old Church Slavonic копати (kopati, “to dig, to hollow out”) with the suffix -aci of trăgaci and stângaci, so that the word first meant a hollowed trunk, compare Bulgarian копач (kopač, “sapper”).^[5][9] Wiktionary allows that Proto-Slavic *kopati (“to dig”) may be the source of both the Romanian and the Albanian words.^[1] Miklosich thought of a native root.^[5] Ciorănescu takes the Ukrainian and Hungarian words for “bush”, Hungarian kopács among them, from Romanian;^[5] the Hungarian dictionaries derive the Hungarian word, in the sense “husk”, from kopik and leave the senses “bush” and “tree” unexplained.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a place name, Kopach, in a document of 1264.^[4][3] The diminutive copăcel also appears first as a place name, in 1473.^[4] The Anonymus Caransebesiensis glosses the word with Latin arbor, and the first Romanian text with it is of 1625, printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

In some regions copac is the general word for “tree”; in others it is opposed to pom, the fruit tree, and names a tree whose fruit is not eaten.^[2][3] The DA notes that in folk speech it replaced arbore altogether.^[2] Regional senses keep the meanings the etymologies start from: an oak, a tall dead tree and a very thick trunk of beech or oak.^[11][2] The south-Danubian words lean the same way: Aromanian cupaci means “oak” and Istro-Romanian copaț “bush”.^[4][5]

Timeline

• 1264 – Kopach, a place name, the first record.^[4][3]
• 1473 – the diminutive copăcel in a place name.^[4]
• 1625 – copacii “the trees” in a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[11][2]
• 1660 – copac in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible has copaci and copacii many times.^[13]
• 1691-1697 – copăcios “wooded” in Teodor Corbea's dictionary.^[4]
• 1932 – copăcărie “trees, grove” in Galaction.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tree: a plant with a tall woody trunk whose branches form a crown some way above the ground; arbore, pom.^[8][1]
2. (regional) A tree that bears no edible fruit, as against pom.^[2][3]
3. (regional) An oak.^[11][2]
4. (regional) A tall dead tree; a very thick trunk of beech or oak.^[11][2]

Word family

• copăcărie
• copăcel
• copăcios

Related words

• Aromanian cupaci

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. copac
3. ^ 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. copac
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. copac
5. ^ 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. copac
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 345
7. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 355
8. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 233
9. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
10. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
11. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 503
12. ^ 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. copac
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Numbers 13:20