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ghioc

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word ghioc

ghioc1 cornflower

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1851 a poem of C. Negruzzi

Forms

ghioc m (plural ghioci)[1] Panțu's plant vocabulary also records the variant dioc, and MDA2 a feminine ghioacă.[2][3]

Etymology

The word for the cornflower is of unknown origin for DEX, MDA2 and Tiktin.[4][3][5] Șăineanu derived it from Latin glaucus (“bluish grey”).[6] Scriban saw in it a shortened form of zglăvoc, another folk name of the plant, and compared it with the snowdrop name ghiocel.[7] Panțu lists it with dioc and the spelling ⟨sglăvoc⟩ side by side as names of the knapweeds (Centaurea).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a verse of C. Negruzzi of 1851, about a country girl who adorns herself at the spring „cu ghioci și viorele” “with cornflowers and violets”.[5][8] MDA2 dates the word from Panțu's plant vocabulary of 1929.[3]

Semantic evolution

The word is regional and mostly used in the plural.[8][4] Panțu gives it for the cornflower and, as dioc, for the related knapweeds Centaurea phrygia and Centaurea pseudophrygia of the mountain meadows.[2][9]

Timeline

  • 1851 – ghioci “cornflowers” in a poem of C. Negruzzi, the first record.[5]
  • 1929 – ghioc and dioc in Panțu's vocabulary of plant names.[3][2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (regional) The cornflower (Centaurea cyanus); also called albăstrea.[4][3][10]
  2. (regional) A knapweed of the mountain meadows (Centaurea phrygia).[9][5]

ghioc2 cowrie

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1683 Dosoftei's lives of the saints
Inherited from
Latin *cloca
Ultimate origin
Latin cochlea

Forms

ghioc n (plural ghiocuri)[1] Dosoftei's lives of the saints have the masculine plurals ghioci and gheoci.[11] Ciorănescu and Wiktionary record a feminine variant ghioacă.[12][1]

Etymology

The word for the cowrie is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cloca, a form of Latin cochlea (“snail”) with metathesis, according to DEX, NODEX and the REW, which follows Pușcariu.[4][13][12][14] MDA2 gives coclea and compares găușel.[3] Tiktin also cites the starred form, but notes that the vowel of the Romanian word speaks against this etymon and against concha (“shell”), and finds the word clearly related to găoace.[11] Densusianu argued against this derivation.[12] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek κοχλίας (kokhlías, “snail with a spiral shell”).[15][1]

Ciorănescu takes another route: cavum (“hole”), whose Romanian outcome survives in that word, with the suffix -oc, so that the two would be doublets.[12] He explains the changed consonant as expressive, drawing the word towards the stem of ghiolcăi, which imitates the sound of a liquid shaken in a closed vessel.[12] Older proposals were Old Church Slavonic глогъ (glogŭ, “hawthorn”) (Cihac) and gullioca (“green husk of a walnut”) (Cihac, Philippide, Pascu).[12] Ciorănescu compares Italian chiocca (“skull”) and Logudorese gioga.[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Dosoftei's lives of the saints, printed at Iași in 1682–1686;[3] Tiktin dates the passage to 1683.[3][11] Klein's dictionary of 1801 glosses ghióc with Latin limax “slug”.[16]

Semantic evolution

The word names the cowrie and, above all, its white glossy shell, which Roma fortune-tellers used to read the future: a căuta în ghioc “to tell fortunes with the shell”.[11][4] Scriban notes that the shell once served as money in southern and eastern Asia and in Africa.[7] Its whiteness gave the comparison alb ca ghiocul “snow-white”, recorded in Sbiera's tales.[11][8]

In Transylvanian charms the word means the eye socket.[7][17] MDA2 records an obsolete idiom a pune cuiva ghioc la ureche “to deceive someone”.[3] Slang has it for the vulva.[18] Ciorănescu derives from it ghiocel, both a small shell and the snowdrop, whose white flower matches the white shell, and dezghioca “to shell, husk”.[12]

Timeline

  • 1683 – the plural ghioci in Dosoftei's lives of the saints, the first record.[11][3]
  • 1801 – ghióc in Klein's dictionary, glossed limax.[16]
  • 1931 – CADE describes the shell as money in Asia and Africa and as a tool of fortune-tellers.[17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The cowrie: a genus of sea snails of warm seas with a large, oval, porcelain-like shell (Cypraea).[4][3][1]
  2. The shell of this snail, worn as an ornament or used to tell fortunes: a da cu ghiocul, a căta (cuiva) în ghioc “to tell (someone's) fortune with the shell”.[4][13]
  3. (Transylvania) The eye socket, in charms.[7][17]

Word family

  • ghiocel
  • ghioș
  • dezghioca

Usage notes

In Moldova, Stati records a masculine ghioc for an air bubble under ice.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 81
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 994
  4. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 438
  5. ^ 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. ghióc 2
  6. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 275
  7. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 555
  8. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 380
  9. ^ a b Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 111
  10. ^ Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 331
  11. ^ 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. ghióc 1
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ghioc
  13. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. ghioc
  14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2011
  15. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 366
  17. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. ghioc
  18. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. ghioc
  19. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 113

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Ghioc.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/ghioc. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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