curcubetă

Forms

curcubetă f (plural curcubete)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cucurbita (“gourd”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DELR takes the variant cucúrbătă (plural ⟨cucúrbete⟩) as the basic form.^[3] The Latin word is probably a loanword, perhaps related to cucumis (“cucumber”).^[6] The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian curcubetã.^[2][7][8] Its Romance relatives include Occitan cogorda and French gourde.^[3][9] Ciorănescu compares Italian corbezza, from a Latin derivative *cucurbitea.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the place name Curcubete in a document of 1530.^[3][4] MDA2 gives the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 as its first source.^[10] The Bible of 1688 has the diminutive plural curcubețeale (2 Kings 4:39).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word names the pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) and the bottle gourd (Lagenaria), and in some areas the white bryony.^[3][10] The dried gourd served as a vessel for keeping liquids and for drawing drink from a barrel (Hunedoara).^[3] From the shape came the sense “skull, head”, used in Transylvania and the Banat and in mockery of a bald head.^[3][11] The DA also records the sense “rainbow”, which Stati lists among Moldovan regionalisms.^[12][13]

The word belongs to the north and west; in the standard language it is regional, beside dovleac and tigvă.^[5][3]

Timeline

• 1530 – the place name Curcubete, the first record.^[3][4]
• c. 1650 – cucurbetariț, a single record in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3]
• 1660-1670 – curcubenos “gourd-shaped” in Staicu's lexicon.^[3]
• 1688 – curcubețeale in the Bucharest Bible.^[4]
• 1825 – curcubetă in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[10]
• 1910 – curcubătări “large summer apples” in the Banat.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) pumpkin, marrow (Cucurbita pepo).^[5][10]
2. (regional) bottle gourd, calabash (Lagenaria).^[5][10]
3. (regional, derogatory) A person's head, skull.^[3][14]

Word family

• curcubă
• curcubătări
• curcubetos
• curcubețesc
• cucurbețică

Related words

• dovleac
• tigvă
• Aromanian curcubetã

Usage notes

The many regional variants include cucurbătă, cucurbeată, cucúrbetă and curcubătă.^[3][10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. curcubetă
3. ^ 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. curcubetă
4. ^ 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. curcubetă
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 262
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 336
8. ^ 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, 73
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2367
10. ^ 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, 579
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 613
12. ^ 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. curcubetă
13. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 86
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. curcubetă