fiere

Forms

fiere f (uncountable)^[1] Old texts often spell it fiiare: „Dederă Lui să bea oțăt cu fiiare amestecat” “they gave him vinegar mixed with gall to drink” (Bible of 1688, Matthew 27:34).^[2] The Bible of 1688 also has hiare (Deuteronomy 32:32), the form with /h/ that Tiktin notes in old texts and in Moldavian.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *felem, a popular form that replaced Latin fel (“bile, gall”) with its genitive fellis;^[4] DEX and MDA2 write it *fele.^{[5][4][6][1][7]} Ciorănescu cites Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu, the REW and the DAR for this etymology.^[5][8] The Latin word has cognates in Ancient Greek χολή (kholḗ, “bile”) and Old High German galla, but its root is uncertain.^[9]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian heari and Megleno-Romanian h'ieri.^[5][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian fiele, French fiel, Occitan fel, Catalan fel, Spanish hiel and Portuguese fel.^[5][7] As in Romanian, the word is feminine in Spanish, Catalan, Old Genoese, Milanese and Friulian, but masculine in Italian, Portuguese, Occitan and French.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is fiiare in Coresi's Psalter of 1570, in Psalm 68.^[10] A 16th-century text in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni has „Cu oțăt și cu fiiare mă adăpară” “they gave me vinegar and gall to drink”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Besides the liquid, the word names the gall bladder, which folk belief holds can burst from great sorrow, anger or effort; hence a-i crăpa fierea “to be furious, worn out”.^[11][12][2] Ispirescu writes that the gall burst in a woman with spite when she saw the lamb.^[2] Its bitterness gave the figurative senses “bitterness, sorrow, trouble” and the phrase inimă de fiere “a heart full of malice”.^[11][6] The contrast amar ca fierea / dulce ca mierea pairs it with miere.^[2]

Bitter plants are named after it: fierea-pământului is centaury, used as a remedy for fevers, and also liverwort and gentian.^[11][4][6] Bogrea explained the plant name as altered from fiara pământului, which Ciorănescu doubts.^[5] The DA compares Italian fielo di terra.^[11] In Transylvania fiere alone is the martagon lily.^[11][13]

Timeline

• 1570 – fiiare in Coresi's Psalter, the first record.^[10]
• 1573–1589 – fiiare in the Ciobanu psalter and in Coresi's psalters of 1577 and 1589.^[10]
• 1688 – fiiare and hiare in the Bucharest Bible.^[2][3]
• 1801 – Fiere glossed with Latin fel in Klein's dictionary.^[14]
• 1870 – fierea pământului as a plant name in Costinescu.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. bile, gall: the bitter yellowish-green fluid secreted by the liver;^[4] a vărsa fiere “to vent one's spite”.^[4][6][1]
2. (figurative) Bitterness, sorrow, trouble.^[4][6][1]
3. The gall bladder (also bășica fierii); a-i crăpa (sau plesni) cuiva fierea “to be beside oneself with anger or envy”.^[4][6]
4. In plant names: fierea-pământului, centaury (Centaurium erythraea), also a liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha); fiere-de-urs, aloe.^[4][6]
5. (regional) The martagon lily (Lilium martagon).^[5][11]

Related words

• Aromanian heari
• Latin fel

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. fiere
3. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Deut 32:32
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 392
5. ^ 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. fiere
6. ^ 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, 902
7. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 52
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3234
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c 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 68:26
11. ^ a b c d e f g 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. fiere
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 505
13. ^ Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 98
14. ^ 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. 360
15. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 436