fuște

Forms

fuște f (plural fuști)^[1] The usual old plural was fușturi, as in Ureche's chronicle: „moldovenii cu fușturile aruncau” “the Moldavians hurled their spears”.^[2] The Bible of 1688 also has a plural fuștiuri, and in Banat a singular fuștiu means a bayonet.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fustis (“stick, cudgel”).^[4][5][6][1] The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian fuște “blows with a stick” and Megleno-Romanian fușt “the rods of a loom”.^[4][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian fusto, French fût, Occitan fust, Catalan fust and Portuguese fuste.^[4][9]

The Latin word is of disputed origin: de Vaan links it with fūtō (“to strike”), others with the root of offendō.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in Coresi's psalter of 1570, where the word renders a staff or sceptre (Ps 44:8, 73:3).^[11] The Psaltirea Scheiană has „Paște-i cu fuște de fieru” “thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron” (Ps 2:9), for Slavonic žezlomŭ “with a sceptre”.^[2][12] MDA2 dates the first record to Coresi's psalter of 1577.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word renders Slavonic palica and Latin virga, a stick or staff.^[3] From the 16th and 17th centuries it also means a spear: the chroniclers Ureche and Nicolae Costin and Dosoftei use it for a lance, and the Bible of 1688 often has it for Ancient Greek λόγχη (lónkhē, “lance”).^[2][3] In this sense it gave fuștaș “lancer”, a soldier of the princes' guard in Wallachia and Moldavia, first recorded in Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints (1682–1686).^[5][6]

The word then went out of use, and DEX marks it as dated.^[6] Around Brașov it lived on as a thick pole used in picking fruit, and in Banat as a bayonet.^[3][5] Hungarian fustély “cudgel”, recorded from 1566, was borrowed from the Romanian articled form fuștele.^[13]

Timeline

• 1570 – fuște “staff” in Coresi's psalter.^[11]
• c. 1573-1578 – “rod” in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[12][2]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1682 – the derivative fuștaș “lancer”, in Dosoftei.^[5]
• 1688 – “spear”, often in the Bucharest Bible.^[2][15]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) A wooden spear with an iron tip; a lance.^[6][1]
2. (dated) A cudgel or staff.^[5][3]
3. (regional) A thick pole.^[5]
4. (regional, plural) A bayonet.^[5]

Word family

• fuștaș

Related words

• fuscel
• Latin fustis

Usage notes

The DA thinks the new singulars fuște and fuștiu were rebuilt from the old plural fuști, with a new plural fușturi.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. fuște
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. fuște
4. ^ a b c 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. fuște
5. ^ 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, 957
6. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 422
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 483
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 133
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3618
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b 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 44:8
12. ^ a b 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 2:9
13. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 993
14. ^ 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. fuște
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Jer 6:23