gândac

Forms

gândac m (plural gândaci)^[1] A regional feminine gândacă also occurs.^[2]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[2][3][4][5] Ciorănescu treats it as a Romanian formation with a suffix on the expressive gâng (“hum, noise”), which imitates the buzzing of insects: from Romanian gâng + -ac.^[4] He finds the Slavic prototype that the DA sets up unnecessary.^[4]

The DA derives it from a Slavic type Proto-Slavic *gądakъ (“buzzer”), on the stem of Russian гудеть (gudetʹ, “to make a muffled sound”) and Serbo-Croatian gundelj (“cockchafer”), following Berneker.^[5] Wiktionary takes it from Old Church Slavonic гадакъ (gadakŭ) and compares the Serbo-Croatian word.^[1] MDA2 only compares the Serbo-Croatian and the Old Church Slavonic forms, and DEX only the Serbo-Croatian one.^[2][3] Tiktin thought it probably dissimilated from a form with ⟨ng⟩ twice and related to gânganie and gâză.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a personal name, Gândac, in a Slavonic–Romanian document of 1578.^[6] As a common noun it is glossed in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of about 1660–1670.^[7] Dosoftei's verse psalter (1673) has the plural: „cu gândacii i-au sterpit de poame” “with beetles he stripped them of their fruit”.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

The word names beetles in general and insects like them.^[5][3] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses it for a crop pest in the prophets.^[8][9] Compounds name single species: gândac-de-casă or gândac-de-bucătărie “cockroach”, gândac-de-mai “cockchafer”, gândac-de-frasin “Spanish fly”, gândac-de-Colorado “Colorado beetle”.^[3][2] Gândac de mătase is the silkworm.^[3][6]

In Maramureș and northern Transylvania the word means “snake”, in Hațeg “mouse”, and in the countryside it was also a name given to dogs.^{[10][11][5][12]} Idioms include a fi mâncat de gândaci “to wear torn clothes” and a avea gândaci în cap “to have bees in one's bonnet”.^[2][5] Wiktionary lists Romani gïndàko as a borrowing from Romanian.^[1]

Timeline

• 1578 – the personal name Gândac in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[6]
• c. 1660–1670 – gîndac in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[7]
• 1673 – gândacii “the beetles” in Dosoftei's verse psalter.^[5][2]
• 1688 – gândac for a crop pest in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives “beetle”, gândac de turbare “Spanish fly”, and the regional sense “snake”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A beetle: the common name of insects of the order Coleoptera and of insects like them;^[3][2] gândac-de-bucătărie “cockroach”, gândac-de-mai “cockchafer”.^[3][2]
2. (usually gândac de mătase) The silkworm.^[3]
3. (regional, Maramureș) A snake.^[14][10]

Word family

• gândăcel

Related words

• gâng
• gânganie
• gâză
• Serbo-Croatian gundelj

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 976
3. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 430
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. gîng
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. gândac
6. ^ 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. gândac
7. ^ 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. gîndac
8. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Joel 1:4
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Amos 7:1
10. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1925), Graiul și folklorul Maramureșului, București: Cultura Națională, p. 221
11. ^ Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 317
12. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. gândac
13. ^ 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. 233
14. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. gândac