cufuri

Forms

cufuri (third-person singular present cufurește, past participle cufurit), fourth conjugation^[1] Beside cufuresc there is a present cufur, recorded by Cihac, with the third person cufure.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin conforiō (“to befoul with excrement”), formed with con- on foriō, from foria (“diarrhoea”).^{[4][5][3][2][1][6]} The Latin verb is recorded only once, in Pomponius.^[6][7] The REW lists the Romanian verb as its only descendant.^[8] Wiktionary and Ciorănescu compare Galician esforricar.^[1][5]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian cufurescu and Megleno-Romanian cufărez.^[5][9][4] Aromanian also has the noun cufoare (“diarrhoea”), which DELR takes from Vulgar Latin *conforia.^[4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1620, in Moxa's chronicle; the participle appears the same year in the place name Curmătura Cufuritului.^[4] Tiktin and MDA2 cite Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints (1682–1686), where the Byzantine emperor Constantine Copronymos is called „Constantin Cufuritul … carele s-au cufurit în scăldătoarea botezului” “Constantine the Befouled, who soiled himself in the baptismal font”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The transitive sense, to soil with liquid excrement and more generally to dirty, stands beside the reflexive a se cufuri “to have diarrhoea”, the usual modern use.^[4][3] The figurative sense, to be seized by sudden great fear, is old enough to be shared with Aromanian, where li cufuriși zmeanile “you soiled your drawers” means you were terrified.^[5][3][9] The word is popular and colloquial; it is recorded in the regional glossaries of Maramureș and Hațeg and in slang dictionaries.^[11][12][13] Cufureală also means a job done carelessly.^[4]

Timeline

• 1620 – the verb in Moxa's chronicle, and the place name Curmătura Cufuritului.^[4]
• 1682–1686 – Constantin Cufuritul for Copronymos in Dosoftei.^[3][2]
• 1802–1803 – cufureală “diarrhoea; great fear”.^[4]
• 1822 – cufuricios “suffering from diarrhoea; cowardly” in Bobb's dictionary.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive, colloquial) To have diarrhoea.^[3][5][1]
2. (transitive) To soil with liquid excrement; by extension, to dirty.^[3][4]
3. (reflexive, figurative) To be seized by sudden great fear, to be scared witless.^[3][5]

Word family

• cufureală
• cufuricios
• cufurit

Related words

• Aromanian cufurescu

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cufurí
3. ^ 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, 565
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. cufuri
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. cufuri
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2137
9. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 320
10. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 71
11. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. cufurí
12. ^ Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 313
13. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. cufuri