floc

Forms

floc m (plural floci)^[1] Besides the masculine plural floci, a neuter plural floace is used: „cojocul cu floace sure” “the sheepskin coat with grey tufts” (Camilar).^[2][3] Tiktin also records a feminine floacă, plural floace.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin floccus (“tuft of wool”), a word continued in most of the Romance languages.^{[3][5][4][6][7][1]} Pușcariu gives Aromanian floc for the Aromanian form, and Papahagi records it with the sense “flock of wool”, plural floațe.^[6][8] The Romance cognates include Italian fiocco, French floc, Occitan floc, Catalan floc and Portuguese froco, and the feminine floacă matches fiocca.^[7][6] Albanian flok (“hair”) was also borrowed from the Latin word.^[1][8]

De Vaan finds no etymology for the Latin word and thinks the comparison with Old High German blaha (“coarse linen cloth”) too vague to be convincing.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1467, in the Slavo-Romanian documents.^[4] MDA2 takes its first record from the Bucharest Bible of 1688, which has the articled form flocul in two verses of the First Book of Kingdoms (19:13, 19:16).^[3][10]

Semantic evolution

The word names a small tuft of hair, wool or silk, and is used mostly in the plural.^[5][11] Scriban adds the long matted hair of an animal, and in coarse speech the hair of the pubic region, a sense that DEX and MDA2 also record.^[12][3] Tiktin has the word for flakes in a liquid and for snowflakes, and Șăineanu gives floci de zăpadă “snowflakes” as a figurative use.^[4][13] Costinescu in 1870 still distinguished the neuter plural floace, used of tufts, from the masculine floci for dirty or soiled hair.^[14] In the Maramureș glossary the word also means the down of feathers.^[15]

Timeline

• 1467 – the first record, in the Slavo-Romanian documents.^[4]
• 1688 – flocul in the Bucharest Bible.^[3][10]
• 1825 – flocu, glossed with Latin floccus, pilus, in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[16]
• 1870 – Costinescu separates the plurals floace and floci.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (popular, usually in the plural) A small tuft of hair, wool or silk.^[5][3][1]
2. (specifically, usually in the plural) A hair of the pubic region.^[5][3]

Word family

• flocos
• flocușor

Related words

• fulg
• Aromanian floc
• Latin floccus

Usage notes

The plural is usually floci; a neuter plural floace is also used.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 305
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, 918
4. ^ 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. floc
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 400
6. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 54
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3375
8. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 464
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 Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 1 Kingdoms 19:13
11. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. floc
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 515
13. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 254
14. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 446
15. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1925), Graiul și folklorul Maramureșului, București: Cultura Națională, p. 219
16. ^ 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. 220