creastă

Forms

creastă f (plural creste)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin crista (“crest, comb”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu cites Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and the REW for this etymology.^[2][6] De Vaan derives the Latin word from the stem *kris- (“crest, hair”) of crīnis (“hair”) and crispus (“curly”).^[7]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian criastă (“summit”) and Megleno-Romanian creastă.^[2] Its Romance cognates are Italian cresta, Spanish cresta, Catalan cresta, Portuguese crista and French crête.^[2] Albanian kreshtë is a comparable form noted by G. Meyer and Philippide.^[2] Ciorănescu takes Serbo-Croatian kreasta as a loan from this word.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the glossary known as the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, which gives the word with Latin crista;^[3][4][8] DELR and MDA2 date it to about 1650, Tiktin to about 1670.^[3][4][8][9] The sense is a bird's comb.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From the comb of a cock or hen the word passed early to the crest of feathers on a bird's head and, by likeness, to anything with a toothed or pointed top: the ridge of a mountain, the ridge of a roof, the crest of a wave, a tree top, the battlements of a wall.^[3][5][9] The same likeness gave plant names: creasta-cocoșului “cockscomb” (Celosia cristata) and several ferns and fungi.^[5][4] Anatomy uses it for a bony ridge.^[5]

The verb cresta “to notch, make incisions” is recorded about 1650 too.^[3] Romanian took from it a second noun creastă “notch, incision” by back-formation, recorded from 1898.^[3] Ciorănescu also lists a regional sense “board for kneading cheese”.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1650 – creastă and the verb cresta in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3][4]
• 1682 – creastă in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – creastă in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1898 – creastă “notch”, a back-formation from cresta, in Damé.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The comb, the fleshy, usually red and toothed growth on the head of some birds; also a crest of feathers.^[5][4][1]
2. (anatomy) A long bony ridge with a sharp edge.^[5]
3. The highest part of a mountain, house, tree or wave; a ridge or summit.^[5][1]
4. The ridge of a roof.^[5]
5. In creastă de taluz, the line where the face of a slope meets the ground or the top of an embankment.^[5]

Word family

• cresta
• crestătură
• crestiță
• crestos
• încresta

Related words

• Aromanian criastă
• Latin crista

Usage notes

Creasta-cocoșului names the cockscomb (Celosia cristata), two ferns and an edible coral fungus (Clavaria flava).^[5] DELR treats creastă “notch”, formed from cresta, as a separate headword.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. creastă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. creastă
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 542
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 247
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2330
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. creastă
9. ^ 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. creastă
10. ^ 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. creastă
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 2 Corinthians 9:10