fotă

Forms

fotă f (plural fote)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish فوطه (fota), a bath towel wrapped round the waist, a word found in all the Balkan languages.^[2][1][3][4] The Turkish word came from Arabic, where it meant a striped cloth, a tablecloth or an apron.^[5][6][7][8]

The cognates in the neighbouring languages are Modern Greek φουτᾶς (foutâs), Albanian futë, Bulgarian фута (futa) and Serbo-Croatian futa, and further off Portuguese fota.^[2][7] Italian futa is a separate borrowing, brought from Eritrea in the 1890s for an African robe.^[8] The word survives south of the Danube as Aromanian fotă “cotton or woollen cloth”.^[2][9] Ciorănescu adds that Romanian passed the word on to Ukrainian.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from about 1462, in a Slavonic–Romanian document, with the sense “apron”.^[4] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 1660s use fotă to translate words for an outer garment and a band.^[10] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it for Ruth's mantle: „Adu-ți fota de preste tine” “bring the shawl you have on”.^[4][11]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century the word named a striped cloth imported from the East: the customs tariffs of 1761 and 1792 list many kinds of fote, some from Bursa and Constantinople, some from Egypt.^[6] It also meant a towel or napkin: in Gheorgachi's book of court ceremonial the coffee-master lays a fotă before the prince, and the metropolitan girds himself with one when he washes the disciples' feet.^[6][11]

From the apron came the modern sense: the richly worked rectangle of wool that peasant women wrap round the body in place of a skirt, or a pair of them worn in front and behind.^[12][4][5] Odobescu and Negruzzi write of the fote of country girls.^[13] A white apron of innkeepers and waiters is called a fotă as well.^[3][13] In slang it can also mean a napkin.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1462 – fotă “apron” in a Slavonic–Romanian document, the first record.^[4]
• 1660 – in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon Lex.St.^[10]
• 1688 – Ruth's mantle in the Bucharest Bible.^[4][11]
• 1761 – the customs tariff lists many kinds of fote cloth.^[6]
• 1792 – the tariff names fote of Bursa, Constantinople and Egypt.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A piece of Romanian women's folk costume, richly ornamented: a rectangle of woollen cloth wrapped round the body in place of a skirt, or two pieces covering the front and the back.^[12][3][1]
2. (rare) An apron worn by innkeepers, waiters and the like.^[12][3]
3. (obsolete) A striped cloth of Eastern origin; a towel or napkin.^[3][6]

Word family

• fotiță

Related words

• catrință
• zăvelcă
• Aromanian fotă

Usage notes

The garment has many regional names: catrință in Moldavia, zăvelcă, opreg and vâlnic in Wallachia and Oltenia, păstură and zadie in Transylvania, peștiman in Bessarabia.^[5][4] Where two are worn, Muntenia calls them catrințe while Moldavia calls the pair fote.^[4] The diminutive is fotiță.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c 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. fotă
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 933
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. fotă
5. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 523
6. ^ a b c d e f Șăineanu, Lazăr (1900), Influența orientală asupra limbei și culturei române, vol. I: Introducerea; vol. II.1: Vorbele populare; vol. II.2: Vorbele istorice, literare, Indice, București: Socec, p. II.1, 174
7. ^ a b Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
8. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 467
10. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. fotă
11. ^ a b c Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 131
12. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 408
13. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 321
14. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. fotă