gingie

Forms

gingie f (plural gingii)^[1] The north of Moldavia and Transylvania has gingină or gingenă, stressed on the first syllable;^[2][3] Dosoftei's psalter has it: „Să mi să prinză limba De gingini” “let my tongue cleave to my gums”.^[4][2][3] A calendar of 1814 has a masculine plural gingei: „Măsealele în gingei sânt aprinse” “the molars are inflamed in the gums”.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gingīva (“gum”), a word continued across the Romance languages.^{[5][6][3][7][1]} It survives in Aromanian dzindzie and in Istro-Romanian žinžire, which comes from the variant gingină.^[5][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian gengiva, French gencive, Occitan gengiva, Spanish encía and Portuguese gengiva.^[5][7]

Candrea and Densusianu see in the variant an early change of ending, old enough for the Istro-Romanian form to show the change of /n/ to /r/.^[5] Tiktin takes its /n/ from the last syllable, and its stress from nouns in ⟨-gină⟩ and ⟨-gine⟩ such as pătlagină, margine and funingine.^[4] The Latin word has no agreed etymology: de Vaan finds the comparison with Indo-European words for round and winding things unconvincing, and Wiktionary mentions Proto-Indo-European *ǵyewh₁- (“to chew”) as possible.^[9][1] Modern Greek τσιντσία (tsintsía) comes from the Romanian word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a psalter of 1651, in the plural, as the word is mostly used.^[4] MDA2 dates it from Piscupescu's health manual of 1829, which advises cutting the gums all round.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the gums of the mouth, Tiktin records a transferred sense “slope, bank”, from Drăghici's advice to dig a hole in the gingina of a river bank.^[4] The DA has the figurative “edge” of the ice in Sandu-Aldea, and a farmers' use: when the kernels begin to form, the maize is said to have gums, as in the mouth.^[2] From this use comes îngingia “(of maize) to set kernels”, and figuratively “to prosper”.^[5]

The adjective ginginos “with strong gums” appears in I. Ionescu, of the front teeth of the ox, and a diminutive gingioară in Ciocârlan.^[2][10] In criminal slang gingie means the mouth.^[11]

Timeline

• 1651 – in a psalter, the first record.^[4]
• 17th century – gingini in Dosoftei's psalter.^[4][2]
• 1814 – the plural gingei in a calendar.^[2]
• 1829 – gingiile in Piscupescu's health manual.^[6][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The gum: the tissue that covers the roots and part of the body of the teeth; often in the plural.^[3][6][1]
2. (regional, figurative) An edge or bank: of a river, of the ice.^[4][2]
3. (slang) The mouth.^[11]

Word family

• îngingia

Related words

• Aromanian dzindzie
• Latin gingīva

Usage notes

DEX gives gingenă and gingină as old and regional variants.^[3] MDA2 has a separate regional gingie “acorn”, from a regional glossary, of unknown origin.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. gingie
3. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 439
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. gingíe
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. gingie
6. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 998
7. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 62
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 434
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 109
11. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. gingie