fumega

Forms

fumega (third-person singular present fumegă, past participle fumegat, third-person subjunctive fumege) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fūmigō (“to smoke, fumigate”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Pușcariu (EWRS no. 670), Candrea and Densusianu (no. 678), the REW and the DA all give this etymon.^[2][6][7] The Latin verb is formed on fūmus (“smoke”) with the suffix -igō, and the Romanian noun fum continues that base.^[8][1][2]

The verb survives south of the Danube as Aromanian fumig.^[9][1] Candrea and Densusianu compare Spanish humear and Portuguese fumear, formed alike on the noun for smoke, and Ungureanu sets beside it the Venetian infumegar.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581–1582, at Exodus 19:18.^[4] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it at Isaiah 7:4, which Tiktin quotes: „Cele doao lemne ale tăciunilor ce fumegă acelora” “these two smoking firebrands”.^[4][12] MDA2 takes that Bible passage, quoted by Tiktin, as its first record.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The old sense is “to give off smoke”, said of embers and wood burning without a flame; from it come the lamp, candle or stove that burns badly and smokes, and the sense “to give off steam”, said of fields after rain, of horses and of food on the fire.^[6][3][5] Tiktin quotes Eminescu's sword steaming with the enemy's blood for this last sense.^[4] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use the forms fumeg and fumegat for Slavonic words for smoking and fuming.^[13][14] Dosoftei's Slavonic–Romanian Psalter has a reflexive use, which Tiktin explains as a confusion with afuma.^[4]

The phrase a-i fumega (cuiva) nasul, literally “someone's nose smokes”, means “to be angry”; the DA takes it from Zanne's collection of proverbs.^[6][3] Ciorănescu lists the derivatives fumegător “smoking”, fumegos (also fumegăios) and the noun fumegai “thick smoke”; the learned fumiga “to fumigate” and fumigație are later loans from French.^[2]

Timeline

• 1581–1582 – the Palia de la Orăștie, Exodus 19:18, the first record.^[4]
• c. 1660–1670 – fumeg and fumegat in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon Lex.St.^[13][14]
• 1688 – fumegă in the Bucharest Bible (Isaiah 7:4, Matthew 12:20).^[12][4]
• 1825 – fumegos and fumegăios “smoking” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give off smoke; to burn slowly without a flame, smouldering.^[5][3]
2. Of a lamp, candle or stove: to burn badly, giving off smoke.^[5][3]
3. To give off steam or vapour; of food being cooked, to steam.^[5][3]

Word family

• fumegător
• fumegos
• fumegai

Related words

• fum
• fuma
• afuma
• fumiga
• Aromanian fumig
• Latin fūmigō

Usage notes

The verb is used mostly in the third person: Lemnele ude fumegă în sobă “the wet logs smoke in the stove”.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. fumega
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, 951
4. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. fumegá
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 419
6. ^ a b c 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. fumegá
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3570
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. fūmigō
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. s.v. fumig
10. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. fumega
11. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 330
12. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isaiah 7:4
13. ^ 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. fumeg
14. ^ 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. fumegat