dejuga

Forms

a dejuga (first-person singular present dejug, third-person singular dejugă, past participle dejugat); first conjugation.^[1][2] Varlaam's Cazania of 1643 writes dezgiuga;^[3] Moldavian has degiuga and digiuga, and the variant dezjuga is common.^[3] Folk poetry has desjuga: „La un brad mare rotat Juncanii au desjugat” “by a great spreading fir they unyoked the bullocks”.^[4][5]

Etymology

DEX, Tiktin and CADE take it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *disiugāre (“to unyoke”), formed dis- and iugō (“to yoke”), the verb of iugum (“yoke”).^[2][3][6][1] MDA2 names instead the Latin disiungō (“to unyoke”).^[7][8] Ciorănescu lists desjuga among the Romanian derivatives of jug, and Wiktionary gives both views.^[9][1]

The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian dizgiug, which Papahagi derives from the same Latin verb;^[10][1] Wiktionary compares Italian disgiogare.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Varlaam's Cazania of 1643, in a story of a ploughman who unyoked his oxen, tied them to a fence and lay down to sleep.^[7][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The literal sense, of oxen or horses taken out of the yoke, runs from Varlaam through Pann, Creangă and Rebreanu.^[4] An old figurative sense was “to set free”.^[7]

From stopping the cart to rest came the intransitive “to stop, put up somewhere, settle”: Ispirescu writes that poverty a dejugat “has settled” in their home.^[11][6] Proverbial phrases build on it: la rea moară am dejugat “I unyoked at a bad mill”, that is, “I have come to the wrong place”, and a dejuga boii de la car “to unyoke the oxen from the cart”, to stop work for a while.^[3][5] MDA2 records the regional a dejuga la noroc “to go at random”.^[7]

Timeline

• 1643 – dezgiuga in Varlaam's Cazania, the first record.^[7][3]
• 1893–1895 – dejuga with French dételer in Damé's dictionary.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To unyoke (oxen), take out of the yoke: Seara a dejugat boii la marginea satului.^[2][7][1]
2. (intransitive, figurative, rare) To arrive or stop somewhere; to put up, settle.^[2][13]

Related words

• jug
• înjuga
• Aromanian dizgiug
• Latin iugum

Usage notes

A dejuga boii de la car means “to stop an activity, for a while”.^[5][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 284
3. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. dejuga
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. dejuga
5. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 41
6. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. dejuga
7. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 633
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. disiungō
9. ^ 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. jug
10. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 405
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 196
12. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. 1
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. dejuga