fasole

Forms

fasole f (plural (rare) fasole)^[1] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has the form fasolă (Nahum 1:10).^[2] Regional variants include fasolă in Moldavia, fasule in Bukovina, făsui in Oltenia and the Banat, păsui in the Banat and păsulă in Transylvania.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek φασόλι (fasóli), the source Ciorănescu, MDA2, DEX and Wiktionary give.^[5][4][6][1] Tiktin traces it, through other languages, to Latin phaseolus.^[3] The Greek word goes back through medieval Byzantine Greek φασόλιν (fasólin) to Ancient Greek φασίολος (phasíolos), from phasiolus, a form of phasēlus, which is φάσηλος (phásēlos).^[7] DELI calls the Greek word of uncertain origin.^[8]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian fãsulj and Megleno-Romanian făsuľ, both from Greek.^{[5][9][10][11]} Ciorănescu compares Turkish fasulye and Albanian fasulj in the same Balkan family.^[5] The Turkish word is itself from Greek.^[12]

The regional forms have different sources.^[5] The variants fasolă and fasulă follow the Greek variant Modern Greek φασούλι (fasoúli), while păsulă and păsui in the west follow Serbo-Croatian pasulj and Hungarian paszuly.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1670, in the Latin–Romanian glossary known as the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has fasolă.^[2] MDA2's first record is a document of before 1793 printed in the Uricariul.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word names the plant, its pods and seeds, and the dish cooked from them.^[6] Varieties are distinguished by many compounds: fasole de arac or fasole de par, the climbing bean grown on stakes, against fasole oloagă, the dwarf bean, already in the Buda lexicon of 1825.^[13][4][3] Green beans are fasole verde and the shelled seeds fasole boabe.^[14]

Jocularly, the plural fasolele means “teeth”, as in the folk verse „Strânge-ți lipitorile, Că se văd fasolele!” “close your leeches (lips), your beans are showing”.^[15][5] From this sense, crossed with fason, the DA explains the reflexive verb fasoli “to put on airs”;^[5] Ciorănescu compares Polish fasoły “grimace”.^[5]

Hungarian borrowed the word as fuszuly, whose diminutive fuszulyka is recorded from 1692.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1670 – first record, in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3]
• 1688 – fasolă in the Bucharest Bible.^[2]
• 1692 – Hungarian fuszulyka, from the Romanian word.^[16]
• before 1793 – fasole in a document printed in the Uricariul.^[4]
• 1825 – the Buda lexicon distinguishes fasole de par and fasole oloagă.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. bean: an annual climbing plant of the legume family, with leaves of three large leaflets, grown for its edible pods and seeds (Phaseolus vulgaris).^[6][1]
2. The green or yellow pod of this plant; each of the seeds inside it.^[6]
3. A dish made from the pods or the seeds: fasole făcăluită, beans boiled and mashed.^[6][17]
4. (jocular, in the plural) Teeth.^[14][5]

Word family

• fasoliște
• fasolică
• fasoli
• fasoleală
• fasolit

Related words

• Aromanian fãsulj
• Modern Greek φασόλι (fasóli)

Usage notes

The word is mostly used in the singular as a collective noun; the plural fasole is rare.^[14][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Naum 1:10
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. fasole
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 878
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. fasole
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 382
7. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
8. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ 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. 2, 40
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 449
11. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 161
12. ^ Tietze, Andreas (2002–2018), Tarihi ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugatı, Istanbul: Simurg; Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, p. 43
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. 212
14. ^ 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, 262
15. ^ 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. fasole
16. ^ a b Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
17. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. fasole