fân

Forms

fân n (plural fânuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fēnum (“hay”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Wiktionary traces the Latin word to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)-; de Vaan accepts this root, which meant “to suckle” and also “to bring forth”, only if ⟨fē-⟩ is the original spelling, the noun then meaning “yield”; otherwise he calls the origin unknown.^[1][7]

The word survives in Istro-Romanian as fir.^{[2][8][9][10]} The Romance cognates include Dalmatian fin, Italian fieno, Sardinian fenu, Occitan fen, French foin, Spanish heno and Portuguese feno.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the 16th-century psalters: Coresi's psalter of 1570 has fîn at Psalm 146, and Tiktin and MDA2 cite the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578).^[11][4][3] The sense recorded is “hay”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the Latin sense of grass cut and dried as fodder.^[5][4] Ciorănescu also gives it as the name of a plant, meadow grass (Poa pratensis).^[2] Rural phrases include a face fân “to make hay, to mow”, and vremea fânului “hay time”, the season when the grass is ready to cut.^[3] Colloquially fân sau paie? “hay or straw?” asks whether a matter stands well or badly.^[4]

Romanian formed fâneață “hayfield” with the suffix -eață, where the DAR saw a Latin *fēnicia;^[2] fânaț looks like a singular rebuilt from the plural fânețe, though Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and the DAR derived it from Latin *fēnacium.^[2]

Timeline

• 1570 – fîn in Coresi's psalter, the first record.^[11]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][4]
• c. 1660–1670 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – the plural fânuri in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. Hay: grass cut and dried for use as fodder for cattle.^[5][3][1]
2. Meadow grass (Poa pratensis).^[2]

Word family

• fâneață
• fânaț
• fânărie
• fânos

Related words

• Istro-Romanian fir
• Latin fēnum

Usage notes

The plural is fânuri, regionally fânațe.^[3] A face fân means to cut the grass for hay.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. fîn
3. ^ 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, 887
4. ^ 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. fân
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 385
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3247
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. fēnum
8. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula, p. s.v. fir
9. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 216
10. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 110
11. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 146:9
12. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. fîn
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 24:32