grec

Forms

grec m (plural greci; feminine greacă or grecoaică); adjective grec m or n (feminine singular greacă, masculine plural greci, feminine/neuter plural grece)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin graecus (“Greek”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word is from Ancient Greek Γραικός (Graikós).^[1][6] In Greek the old ethnic name became, under Ottoman rule, a common name for the Greeks.^[7] The word survives in Aromanian grec, with the feminine greacă.^[8] Its Romance cognates include Italian greco, Old French grieu, Spanish griego and Portuguese grego.^[2][9][8] The neologism dictionary MDN also names French grec as a model for the modern adjective.^[10] Compounds such as greco-catolic take French gréco- as their first part.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's earliest record is from 1436, and the place name Greci is recorded from 1456.^[6] In Romanian texts the word appears in the 16th century.^[2] MDA2 dates its first record to 1564, in Coresi; the DA quotes a Coresi passage of that kind: „și el eră Grec” “and he was a Greek”.^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

The noun names a member of the Greek people and the adjective what belongs to Greece or the Greeks; the feminine greaca also means the Greek language.^[4][3] In Transylvania and the Banat a grec was formerly a merchant from the south, often an Aromanian, Bulgarian, Serb or even a Romanian, and the word also came to mean a grocer.^[11][3] Folk speech uses greaca for a dance and its tune.^[3] The saying se poftesc ca grecii la temniță “they bow each other in like Greeks at the prison door” is said when no one will go first.^[6][11]

Romanian built a family on the word: grecesc “Greek”, grecește “in Greek”, grecoaică “Greek woman”, and the disparaging grecotei.^[2]

Timeline

• 1436 – Tiktin's first record.^[6]
• 1456 – the place name Greci.^[6]
• 1564 – grec in Coresi, MDA2's first record.^[3]
• c. 1660–1670 – grec in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – grecilor “of the Greeks” in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Greek: a person of the Greek people or from Grecia.^[4][1]
2. (obsolete, regional) A merchant, especially one from the south; a grocer.^[3][11]

Adjective

1. Greek: of Greece, the Greeks or their language; the feminine greaca used as a noun is the Greek language.^[4][3][1]

Word family

• grecesc
• grecoaică
• grecotei
• grecoman
• grecie
• grecește

Related words

• Aromanian grec
• Latin graecus

Usage notes

The feminine of the noun is usually grecoaică;^[2][4] greacă as a noun is rare for a woman and usually names the language.^[2][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. grec
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 449
5. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 63
6. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. grec
7. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
8. ^ a b Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 95
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3832
10. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. grec
11. ^ 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. grec
12. ^ 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. grec
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 1 Macc 1:11