elefant

Forms

elefant m (plural elefanți)^[1] The 1688 Bible has elefand in the sense “ivory”: „Besearicile tale făcutu-s-au den elefand” “thy benches have been made of ivory” (Ezekiel 27:6).^[2] The same Bible has elifand: „corabie... de aur și de argint și de dinți de elifand” “a ship ... of gold and silver and of elephants' teeth”.^[3][4] The 18th century had a plural elefanturi: „oase de elefanturi” “elephants' bones” (Molnar).^[3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written елефант.^[1]

Etymology

The modern word is borrowed from French éléphant, with Latin elephantus as a second source, as DEX, MDA2 and DLR give it;^[5][4][3] DER and Wiktionary name only French.^[6][1] DELR, with older records, puts New Latin first, together with borrowed from Hungarian elefánt, and French only later.^[7]

The old forms came by other routes: elefand and elifand are borrowed from Modern Greek ελέφαντας (eléfantas), with the Greek pronunciation of ⟨nt⟩ as /nd/,^[7][8] or from the Greek genitive ἐλέφαντος (eléphantos);^[3] Tiktin derives the form from ελεφαντόδους (elefantódous, “ivory”).^[2] The form lefantă of 1620 is borrowed from Serbo-Croatian lefanat, genitive lefanta.^[7] The popular alifant is a variant of the modern word.^[6][4]

The Latin word is from Ancient Greek ἐλέφας (eléphas), of unclear origin.^[9][7] DELR mentions a link with the Hamitic *eḷu (Beekes) and with Hittite laḫpaš (“ivory”) (Chantraine);^[7] Babiniotis notes that it is already Mycenaean and takes it for a loan from Asia Minor.^[10] The Greek word also gave Aromanian elefandu.^[6][11][12] Scriban compares Old French olifant, the Old French word for an ivory horn.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is lefantă, in the Alexander Romance of 1620; the form elefant appears in a collection of histories of 1668–1670.^[7] MDA2 and Tiktin date the word to the Bucharest Bible of 1688, where elefand or elifand is above all ivory, the material of the elephant's tusks.^[4][2][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides the animal, the old language used the word for ivory, a sense now obsolete.^[4][3] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 has os de elefant “elephant bone” for ivory.^[13] Modern dictionaries distinguish the Indian or Asian and the African elephant.^[3][4]

Slang made it a banknote of a thousand lei and a man who pays for everyone, an elderly man with money who is easily fooled.^[6][4] Regionally it names a big, strong horse or ox,^[4] and present-day slang a person of high standing or an athlete who stays on too long.^[14] The plant păduchele elefantului is caltrop, Tribulus terrestris.^[2] A avea memorie de elefant is to never forget a wrong.^[15]

Timeline

• 1620 – lefantă in the Alexander Romance, the first record.^[7]
• c. 1660 – the old synonym elefandin, from Slavonic, in a chronograph.^[7]
• 1668–1670 – the form elefant.^[7]
• 1688 – elefand, elifand “ivory” in the Bucharest Bible.^[4][2]
• 1825 – elefant and os de elefant “ivory” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[13]
• 1850 – the adjective elefantic in Brezoianu.^[7]
• 1888 – the adjective elefantin “of elephants; huge”.^[7]
• 1889 – elefăntoaică “female elephant”.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. An elephant: either of two very large mammals of the proboscidean order, with thick skin, a mobile trunk and long ivory tusks, the Asian (Elephas maximus) and the African (Loxodonta africana).^[5][4]
2. (slang, formerly) A banknote of a thousand lei.^[6][4]
3. (slang, dated) A man who always pays; an elderly man with money who is easily fleeced.^[6][4]
4. (regional) A big, strong horse or ox.^[4]
5. (obsolete) Ivory.^[4][3]

Word family

• elefantiazis
• elefantic
• elefantin
• elefăntoaică
• elefănțel

Related words

• fildeș
• Aromanian elefandu
• Ancient Greek ἐλέφας (eléphas)

Usage notes

The popular variant alifant is heard in Muntenia and Moldavia.^[7][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. elefant
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. elefant
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 799
5. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 348
6. ^ 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. elefant
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. elefant
8. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 440
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
13. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 204
14. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu
15. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual