dumica

Forms

dumica (third-person singular present dumică, past participle dumicat); 1st conjugation^[1] Old texts have demica: Dosoftei's liturgy has „Şi popa, demicând Svântul Agneţ în patru, cu socotire şi cu smerenie, zice” “and the priest, breaking the Holy Lamb into four, says with care and humility”.^[2][3] The Bible of 1688 has dimica; regional forms include dămica, dumeca and diumica (Banat).^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dēmīcō (“to crumble”), formed on mīca (“crumb, grain”).^{[5][6][7][8][4]} This is the view of Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu, the REW and Tiktin.^[6][3] Ciorănescu rejects Rosetti's link with Latin dīmicō (“to fight”).^[6] DELR adds that this Latin verb, from micō (“to quiver, flash”), has nothing to do with the noun for “crumb”.^[5]

The expected outcome was the old demica or dimica, which was dissimilated to the modern form.^[6] Candrea–Densusianu instead put the /u/ down to the rounding effect of the /m/.^[9] It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian dinjic.^{[6][10][11][12]} DELR compares Old French demier and Spanish demigar, which may however be later Romance formations, and Ciorănescu compares the parallel formation of French émietter from mie (“crumb”).^[5][6]

Cihac derived the Romanian verb from Slovene demikát, Czech demikát and Hungarian domika (“bread soup”), but Ciorănescu thinks these come from Romanian instead.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is the form dimica in the dictionary of Anonymus Caransebesiensis, about 1650.^[5] Tiktin's first record is Dosoftei's liturgy of 1679, where the priest breaks the consecrated bread.^[3][2] In the Bible of 1688 it renders Greek ἐνέθρυψεν and διάθρυπτε: „Dumică la cel flămând pânea ta” “break your bread to the hungry” (Isaiah 58:7).^[3]

Semantic evolution

The central sense is breaking bread or polenta into small pieces, often into milk or soup, and by extension chewing and eating slowly.^[2][8][4] It was also used of grinding grain and of cutting a person to pieces, and old texts used it for destroying an army on the battlefield.^[4][5][3] In the reflexive it meant “to fall apart”, of estates divided among many heirs.^[13][1]

The participle gave the noun dumicat “morsel”, also a soup of bread or polenta boiled in milk or water, recorded from 1691–1697.^[5] This pastoral word was borrowed as Hungarian domika “bread soup with cheese”, recorded in Transylvania from 1585, partly through Slovak demikát.^[14]

Timeline

• 1585 – Hungarian domika, a loan from Romanian dumicat.^[14]
• c. 1650 – dimica in Anonymus Caransebesiensis, the first Romanian record.^[5]
• 1679 – demicând in Dosoftei's liturgy.^[3][2]
• 1688 – dumică in the Bucharest Bible.^[4][2]
• 1691–1697 – the noun dimicat “morsel” in Corbea's dictionary.^[5]
• 1851 – dimicație, a bookish coinage of Stamati.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To crumble, break or cut food into small pieces, especially bread or polenta into milk or soup.^[8][2][1]
2. To chew slowly; to eat with relish.^[8][4]
3. To cut someone to pieces; by extension, to destroy, annihilate.^[8][15]
4. (obsolete) To grind.^[4][1]
5. (reflexive, obsolete) To break up, fall apart.^[4][13]

Word family

• dumicat
• dumicătură
• răzdumica
• zdrumica

Related words

• mică
• Aromanian dinjic

Usage notes

The present is stressed both dumíc and dúmic.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. dumica
3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. dumica
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 770
5. ^ 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. dumica
6. ^ 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. dumica
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2551
8. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 335
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. dumica
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 388
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 392
12. ^ 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, 133
13. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. dumica
14. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 659
15. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 184