gros

Forms

gros m or n (feminine singular groasă, masculine plural groși, feminine/neuter plural groase)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grossus (“thick”), a colloquial Latin adjective attested in this sense from the 1st century AD and often compared with crassus (“thick, fat”).^[2][3][1][4] Its further origin is uncertain.^[1][4]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian gros, Megleno-Romanian gros and Istro-Romanian gros.^[2][5][6][7] Its Romance relatives include Italian grosso, French gros, Catalan gros, Spanish grueso and Portuguese grosso.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin gives a place name, Groșani, from 1392–1408, and dates the first record of the word to 1486, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[9] The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (early 16th century) has the articled form grosul (Psalm 140:8).^[10] MDA2's first record is Varlaam's Cazania of 1643.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The adjective describes the size of a body across: a thick trunk or finger, a stout body, a thick book or layer, a dense liquid.^[3][9] Applied to women it means “pregnant”, as Scriban notes French grosse does.^[3][12] Applied to the voice it means “deep, low”, as Italian voce grossa does.^[5][9] In the chroniclers it means “coarse, uncouth”: Tiktin quotes Nicolae Costin on a people „gros și neplecat” “coarse and unbending”.^[9]

Used as a noun, gros means a thick tree trunk or log, and in old texts the block of wood in which a prisoner's hands and feet were held; from this it came to mean “prison”.^[9][2] Ciorănescu follows Bogrea for this change.^[2] A groșar was a jailer, and grosărit an 18th-century payment that delinquents made to escape prison.^[2] Grosul also means the main body of a group, as in grosul oștirii “the main body of the army”.^[9][3]

Ruthenian took grušati se “to curdle” from Romanian, according to Capidan.^[2]

Timeline

• 1486 – first record of the word, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[9]
• c. 1500-1520 – grosul in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 140:8).^[10]
• 1643 – Varlaam's Cazania, MDA2's first record.^[11]
• 1649 – the word in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda gives the noun “trunk; stocks for prisoners” and the adjective “thick, dense”.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. thick: of cylindrical bodies, larger than usual in diameter;^[3][1] intestinul gros “the large intestine”.^[3][1]
2. Of people or parts of the body, broad, stout.^[3][11]
3. (popular, of women) pregnant.^[3][11]
4. Large in volume; of letters, bold;^[3] gros la pungă “rich”.^[3]
5. Deep from the surface down: un strat gros “a thick layer”; woven from thick yarn.^[3]
6. Of liquids, dense, slow to flow; figuratively of darkness or fog, deep, compact.^[3]
7. Of the voice or of sounds, deep, low.^[3][9]
8. (archaic) coarse, boorish, uncultivated.^[3][9]

Adverb

1. (colloquial) A lot, abundantly: A pierdut gros la cărți. “He lost heavily at cards.”^[3]
2. (archaic) Roughly, in broad outline.^[3]

Noun

1. (neuter) The bulk, the greater part of a group or a set;^[3][9] din gros “in plenty”.^[3][9]
2. (neuter, colloquial) prison; formerly the stocks in which prisoners were held.^[3][9]
3. (masculine, regional) A log, a tree trunk, a thick beam.^[3][9]

Word family

• grosime
• groșar
• grosărit
• grosărie
• grosoman
• îngroșa

Related words

• Aromanian gros
• Latin grossus

Usage notes

Many expressions use the word: gros de obraz “brazen; thick-skinned”, gros la ceafă “boorish”, gros de cap “slow-witted”.^[3][11][9]

DEX has a second noun gros (plural groși), a trade measure of twelve dozen, or 144 pieces, and mic gros is a wholesale depot.^[3][11] It comes from German Gros and MDA2 records it only from DEX 1998.^[3][11] The German word comes from French gros, short for grosse douzaine “great dozen”.^[15]

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. gros
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 452
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 63
6. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 113
7. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3881
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. gros
10. ^ 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 140:8
11. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1026
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 578
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. gros
14. ^ 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. 246
15. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 376