foaie

Forms

foaie f (plural foi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin folia (“leaf”), the plural of Latin folium (“leaf”), taken as a feminine singular, at first with a collective sense.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Some modern senses follow French feuille.^[3] Besides the French word, its Romance cognates include Italian foglia, Catalan fulla, Spanish hoja and Portuguese folha.^[4][6] The Latin word is traditionally derived from Proto-Indo-European *bʰolh₃yom (“leaf”) and compared with Ancient Greek φύλλον (phúllon); de Vaan prefers a root meaning “to sprout, to be green”.^[1][7] The same Latin word was borrowed again in folie and foliu.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from a document of 1588.^[8] MDA2's is from a cookery book of 1749, which calls for chopped parsley leaves, „foi de pătrânjel tocate”.^[3][2] The first sense was the leaf of a plant.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the sense “leaf” frunză is now the usual word, and foaie is mostly used of leaves in set phrases and folk poetry, where many songs open with foaie verde “green leaf”.^[8][2] By extension it named petals and sepals, and it forms plant names such as foaie-grasă “butterwort”.^[2][9]

From the leaf it passed to anything thin and flat: a thin sheet of metal, a sheet of paper, the leaf of a book.^[2][9] A sheet of paper with writing on it became a document (foaie de zestre “dowry list”, foaie de drum “travel warrant”), and a newspaper: Ce scriu foile? “What do the papers say?”^[8][9] Other senses are the width of a cloth, a skirt made of one width of cloth, and a layer of rolled dough.^[8][4][10] Idioms include a întoarce foaia “to change one's tone, to turn harsher”.^[9][8] Ukrainian borrowed the word for “sheet” from Romanian, according to Miklosich and Candrea.^[4]

Timeline

• 1588 – the first record, in a document.^[8]
• 1749 – foi de pătrânjel “parsley leaves” in a cookery book.^[3][2]
• 1814 – foi de cucută “hemlock leaves” in a calendar.^[2]
• 1825 – foaie “leaf” in the Lexicon of Buda.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A leaf of a plant; also a petal or sepal.^[9][3]
2. A thin, flat piece of a material: o foaie de tablă “a sheet of tin”.^[9][3]
3. A sheet of paper; a leaf of a book, register or notebook.^[9][3]
4. An official paper that certifies a right or a duty: foaie de drum “travel warrant”.^[9]
5. (dated) A newspaper or magazine.^[9][8]
6. A width of cloth; a skirt made from a single width.^[8][4]
7. (regional) A layer of rolled-out dough.^[10][4]

Word family

• foios
• desfoia
• înfoia
• foiță
• răsfoi

Related words

• folie
• foliu
• trifoi
• Latin folium

Usage notes

Foaie volantă is a leaflet or a loose sheet, foaie de titlu is the title page of a book.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. foaie
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, 922
4. ^ 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. foaie
5. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. foaie
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3415
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. foaie
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 403
10. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. foaie
11. ^ 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. 222