felie

Forms

felie f (plural felii)^[1] A cookbook of 1749 has the form fălii: „tăind tigva fălii, o presară cu sare” “cutting the gourd into slices, sprinkle it with salt”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek φελί (felí, “slice, piece”), also spelled φελλί (fellí).^[4][5][6][1] The Greek word comes from Byzantine Greek ὀφέλλιον (ophéllion), with a shift of stress, from Latin offella (“a small morsel of bread”), a diminutive of offa (“a lump, a morsel”).^[7][8][9] Ciorănescu and the REW give the Latin source after Meyer, and Tiktin notes that the Greek word spread to all the Balkan languages.^[6][10][3] The DA and DLRM only compare the Greek word.^[2][11]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian filii or filie, and Megleno-Romanian filie, which Capidan derives from the Greek.^[6][12][13] Ciorănescu compares Bulgarian филия (filija) and Serbo-Croatian felija;^[6][1] Wiktionary compares Sicilian feḍḍa, from the same Latin word.^[6][1] Scriban took the Greek word from Italian offella and Cihac went back to Latin directly; both views are older than the Greek derivation now given.^[14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the plural fălii “slices” in a cookbook of 1749 printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[2][3] MDA2 dates the word to Piscupescu's health manual of 1829, which recommends wetting the skin with a slice of lemon.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

The word has always meant a thin piece cut from something to eat: bread, bacon, melon, lemon.^[2][4] With a tăia it is used adverbially, a tăia felii “to cut in slices”; the DA found în felii only in more recent writers.^[2] Figuratively it was applied to slabs of rock.^[16]

Recent colloquial speech uses it for a field of interest or activity, and a fi pe felie for being on top of something, likely to win, or in on a deal;^[5][17] Dimitrescu records the phrase in the press from 2001.^[5][17] In criminal slang it means “wallet” and “a prison sentence”.^[18]

Timeline

• 1749 – fălii “slices” in a cookbook, the first record.^[2][3]
• 1829 – felie de lămâie “slice of lemon” in Piscupescu's Oglinda sănătății.^[5][2]
• 1870 – Costinescu glosses it as a broad piece of food, French morceau.^[19]
• 2001 – the colloquial pe felie “set to win” in the press.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A slice: a thin piece with flat faces cut from a whole, usually from food: o felie de pâine.^[4][1]
2. (figurative, colloquial) A field of interest or activity;^[5][17] a fi pe felie to be very good at something and act quickly, or to be in a favoured position.^[5][17]
3. (slang) A wallet; a criminal sentence.^[18]

Word family

• feliuță
• înfelia

Related words

• Aromanian filii

Usage notes

Fălie is the regional form of Moldavia, Oltenia and Transylvania.^[14][5][2] Klein's dictionary of 1801 and Cihac also record a Transylvanian felie meaning “kinship”.^[20][15] The diminutive feliuță also names the male fern, which Ciorănescu explains as a confusion with ferigă.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. felie
3. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. felie
4. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 387
5. ^ 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, 892
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. felie
7. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
8. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1588
9. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6042
11. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. felie
12. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 453
13. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 127
14. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 499
15. ^ a b Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 659
16. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 274
17. ^ a b c d e Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. felie
18. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. felie
19. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 428
20. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 359