grâu

Forms

grâu n (plural grâne or grâie)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grānum (“grain, seed”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm, “that which has ripened; grain”.^[1][6]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian grãn, Megleno-Romanian grǫn and Istro-Romanian grăwu.^[2][5][7] Ciorănescu compares Albanian grun and grurë, and Italian grano, Spanish grano and French grain.^[2]

The sound shape is not regular: the expected outcome is ⟨grîn⟩, and brâu and frâu show the same final /w/.^[2] Miklosich took the word for a native one because of this difficulty.^[2] Meyer-Lübke blamed the velar timbre of the vowels, Skok the nasal vowel in final position, and Rosetti made the final /u/ the condition of the change;^[2] Graur started from a rhotacized form.^[2] Ciorănescu finds none of these convincing and suggests an intermediate ⟨grîru⟩, whose second /r/ was lost by dissimilation, since this word, ⟨brâu⟩ and ⟨frâu⟩ all have an /r/ in the preceding syllable.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the genitive grîului in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century (Psalm 4:8).^[8] In the Codicele Voronețean the sailors lighten the ship: „Lepădară grâul în mare” “they cast the wheat into the sea” (Acts 27:38).^[4][5] MDA2 also dates the word to this text.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word names the plant and its grain, and in the plural grâne cereals in general.^[2][9] The plural varies: grâne is the standard form, grâie is Moldavian and popular, grâuri regional, and Coresi's Psalter has grâure.^[5][3] The DA notes that the sense “cereals” is also Bulgarian.^[4]

Many plant names are formed with it: grâul-potârnichii “pellitory” (Parietaria), grâu negru or grâul-prepeliței “cow-wheat” (Melampyrum), and floarea grâului “cornflower”.^[5][10] Old dictionaries list the farmer's varieties: Klein's dictionary of 1801 has winter wheat, spring wheat and beardless wheat.^[11] A Wallachian personal name Grănotă of 1620 is formed on the plural grâne.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – genitive grîului in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 4:8), the first record.^[8]
• c. 1563–1583 – grâul “the wheat” in the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 27:38).^[3][5][4]
• 1620 – the personal name Grănotă, formed on the plural grâne, in Wallachia.^[12]
• 1649 – grîu glossing Slavonic words for grain in Mardarie's lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – grâu in the Bucharest Bible, more than 70 times (Genesis 27:28).^[14]
• 1801 – grâu with the Latin Triticum in Klein's dictionary.^[11]
• 1825 – grâu or grânu in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. wheat (Triticum): a genus of cereal grasses with a long narrow ear, whose grain is ground into flour; a plant of this genus.^[9][3][1]
2. The grain of this plant.^[9][16]
3. A field of standing wheat or, more generally, of cereals.^[9]
4. (in the plural grâne) Cereals as harvested grain: un depozit de grâne “a grain store”.^[9][1]

Related words

• grânar
• grăunte

Usage notes

As the name of the plant the word is masculine; for the field or the grain it is neuter, with the plural grâne (or grâie).^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. grîu
3. ^ 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, 1020
4. ^ a b c d 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. grâu
5. ^ 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. grâu
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 513
8. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 4:8
9. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 449
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 282
11. ^ 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. 367
12. ^ a b Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. grîu
13. ^ 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. grîu
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 27:28
15. ^ 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. 243
16. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. grâu