grăsime

Forms

grăsime f (plural grăsimi)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian gras (“fat”) + -ime, with the suffix of abstract nouns.^[2][3][4][1] Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of gras, which is inherited from grassus.^[5] The same formation exists south of the Danube: Aromanian grãsimi and Megleno-Romanian grăsimi.^[6][1] Cihac compared Italian grassume and French graisse.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581–1582, in Exodus 23, for the fat of a sacrifice.^[8] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it, from Mardarie's of 1649, to gloss Slavonic words for fat and fatness.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The Bible of 1688 has „Mâncați grăsimi” “eat the fat”.^[2] The phrase grăsimea pământului “the fat of the land” is in an 18th-century book on husbandry and in folk verse.^[2][10] The DA's quotations add fat used for cooking and in industry, beside untură, osânză and seu.^[2] Pontbriant records grăsime pe haine “grease stains on clothes” and the sense “stoutness”.^[11] Negruzzi uses it figuratively for wealth: „Grăsimea pungii noastre se scurge într-a lui” “the fat of our purse drains into his”.^[2][4] Ciorănescu notes an old sense “manure”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1581–1582 – in the Palia de la Orăștie (Exodus 23).^[8]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[9]
• 1688 – Mâncați grăsimi “eat the fat” and some thirty other uses in the Bucharest Bible.^[2][12]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it Latin pinguedo, obesitas.^[13]
• 1862 – Pontbriant records grăsime pe haine “grease stains”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. fat: the greasy substance in animal and plant tissue, forming in people and some animals the layer under the skin; fat taken from animals or plants for cooking and industry.^[3][14]
2. A grease stain.^[3][4]
3. fatness, stoutness of a person or animal.^[3][1]
4. (figurative) Wealth, riches.^[4]

Related words

• gras
• îngrășa
• untură
• Aromanian grãsimi

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. grăsime
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 448
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1019
5. ^ a b 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. gras
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 513
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 110
8. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. grăsime
9. ^ 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. grăsime
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 410
11. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 293
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Neh 8:12
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. 242
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. grăsime