foarfece

Forms

foarfece n (plural foarfece)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin forficem (“shears, scissors”), the accusative of the noun.^[1][2][3][4] Ciorănescu thinks the word was first a plural only, and that the feminine foarfecă is a later singular made on the plural.^[2] Scriban traces the steps: the articled plural ⟨foarfecele⟩ was taken for a feminine plural, then came ⟨foarfeci⟩ and the new singular.^[5]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian foarficã and Megleno-Romanian foarfiți.^[2][6] Papahagi calls the /t/ of the Aromanian variant foartică unexplained.^[6] Romance cognates include Italian forbice, Sardinian forfighe, French forces and Occitan forfe.^[7][1]

De Vaan derives the Latin word from a Proto-Italic noun for shearing and Proto-Indo-European *bʰerdʰ-, though its internal /f/ is irregular in Latin.^[8][1] The OLD takes it as an altered form of forceps (“tongs”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the word from Mardarie's lexicon of 1649.^[10] MDA2's first record is a document published by Iorga, from before 1779.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Beside the tool for cutting, MDA2 records the senses “pincers” and, regionally, “fire tongs”, and the claws of a crayfish.^[3] Modern senses are a scissor jump in sport, the price scissors in economics (foarfeca prețurilor), a sailor's knot of two or three loops, and the water soldier, a water plant (foarfeca-bălții).^[4][3]

The word has a neuter foarfece, a feminine foarfecă (plural foarfeci) and a masculine foarfec.^[4][10] Derivatives include the verb forfeca “to cut; to crush; to chew”, which may come straight from Latin forficō, and forfecuță, a diminutive and the name of the crossbill.^[2]

Timeline

• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, the first record.^[10]
• before 1779 – in a document published by Iorga.^[3]
• 1870 – Cihac lists foarfece, foarfeci “scissors” with the verb forfeca.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. scissors, shears: a cutting tool of two crossed blades joined by a screw, each with a ring-shaped handle.^[4][1]
2. (by extension) pincers;^[3] (regional) fire tongs.^[3]
3. The front claws of a crayfish.^[3]
4. A scissor jump in sport, made by raising the legs one after the other.^[4]
5. (economics) foarfeca or foarfecele prețurilor “the price scissors”: the gap between different prices.^[4]

Word family

• forfeca
• forfecuță

Usage notes

DEX 2009 enters the word under the feminine foarfecă (plural foarfeci), with foarfece (neuter, plural foarfece) and the masculine foarfec as variants.^[4] A pair of scissors is also o pereche de foarfeci.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. foarfecă
3. ^ 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, 923
4. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 403
5. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 517
6. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 466
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3435
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ 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. foárfece
11. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 97