gazdă

Forms

gazdă f (plural gazde)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Hungarian gazda (“master of the house, host”), a loan of the Transylvanian contact with Hungarian.^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Tamás holds that the direct Hungarian origin cannot be doubted.^[2] Drăganu thought of Slavic mediation, but the Serbian and Slovene forms are themselves Hungarian loans.^[2] The sense “lodging” arose in Romanian, while “master of the house, innkeeper” is the original Hungarian sense.^[2]

The Hungarian word is recorded from about 1372 (in the Jókai Codex, copied about 1448), in the sense “head of the household”.^[7][8] It is probably a loan from a Slavic господа (gospoda, “inn, lodging”), shortened in Hungarian as vajda was shortened from the Slavic word for a voivode.^[7][8][9] Wiktionary compares Proto-Slavic *gostьpoda.^[1] The word spread from Hungarian into the neighbouring Slavic languages as well.^[3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's earliest record is from about 1427.^[11] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicons from about 1660 on use it to translate words for an innkeeper and for a lodging, and the Bible of 1688 calls the innkeeper of the Good Samaritan's parable gazda.^[12][13]

Semantic evolution

In Transylvania the word kept the Hungarian sense of a well-to-do farmer, master of his own household, often set against a poor man or a servant: a record of 1767 counts a whole village as „150 de gazde” “150 householders”.^[6][4][14] Folk verse plays on it: „Decât gazdă păcătoasă, Mai bine slugă frumoasă” “better a handsome servant than a wretched master”.^[11][6] Elsewhere the senses of host and lodging won: a trage în gazdă “to put up with someone”, a sta în gazdă “to lodge”.^[11][10]

A gazdă de hoți was a receiver of thieves and stolen goods, and underworld slang still uses gazdă for a fence or a brothel keeper.^[15][16] Biology took it for the organism on which a parasite lives.^[5][4]

Timeline

• c. 1427 – the first record.^[11]
• c. 1660–1670 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing words for an innkeeper and a lodging.^[12]
• 1688 – gazdei “to the innkeeper” in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]
• 1767 – gazde “householders” in a Transylvanian village record.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A host: a person who takes someone into his house; a landlord or landlady who lets lodgings; the master of a house in relation to the guests, an amfitrion.^[5][4][1]
2. (biology) The organism on which or in which a parasite lives.^[5][4]
3. lodging: the place where someone stays as a guest or a tenant.^[5][4]
4. (regional) A well-off peasant;^[16] de gazdă (mare) “of a rich family”.^[5][4]
5. (slang) A fence for stolen goods; one who hides criminals; a brothel keeper.^[16]

Word family

• găzdoaie
• găzdoi
• găzdui
• găzdălui
• găzduitor

Related words

• gospodar
• Hungarian gazda

Usage notes

In Maramureș it is also the head shepherd of a sheepfold and a good farmer.^[17] Ciorănescu and MDA2 record a rare regional sense “wife”.^[3][4] The DA notes that Hungarian gazda has the same sense.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 370
3. ^ 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. gazdă
4. ^ 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, 967
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. 1, 427
6. ^ a b c d e 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. gazdă
7. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 1037
8. ^ a b Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
9. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
10. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 543
11. ^ 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. gazdă
12. ^ 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. gazdă
13. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Lk 10:35
14. ^ Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 133
15. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 359
16. ^ a b c Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. gazdă
17. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. gázdă