gustare

Forms

gustare f (plural gustări)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian gusta + -re, the long infinitive of the verb used as a noun.^[2][3][4][1] The verb gusta continues Latin gustō (“to taste”).^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Coresi's Psalter of 1570, at Psalm 64:10, also in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5][4][3] There it means “food”: „Gătit-ai gustare lor” “thou hast prepared them food”, for Latin cibum.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts it meant food or a meal, and also the sense of taste or the taste of a thing: the Bible of 1688 says of manna „gustarea ei ca azima în miere” “its taste like wafers with honey”.^[2][4][6] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it for the Slavonic words for taste and for the morning meal.^[7] The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) gives both the act of tasting and a small meal.^[8]

The modern sense “snack, light meal” grew from the small amount of food one tastes;^[2][4] Pann's proverb compares marrying young to a morning snack.^[2][4] In Banat, Maramureș and parts of Moldova it names the main meal of the day, eaten around midday.^[2][9][10]

Timeline

• 1570 – gustare “food” in Coresi's Psalter, the first record.^[5]
• c. 1573-1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][4]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[7]
• 1688 – gustarea “taste” in the Bucharest Bible.^[6][4]
• 1825 – “tasting” and “small meal” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of tasting; trying the taste of a food or drink.^[11][3][12]
2. A snack: a small, usually cold meal eaten quickly between the main meals;^[11][3][13] gustare de dimineață “breakfast”.^[11][3][13]
3. (regional) The main meal of the day, lunch.^[3][10]
4. (obsolete) Taste; food, nourishment.^[3][2]

Word family

• gustărică

Related words

• gust
• gustos

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. gustare
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1033
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. gustare
5. ^ 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 64:10
6. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ex 16:31
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b 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.)
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească
10. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare
11. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 455
12. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
13. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne