gută

Forms

gută f (plural gute)^[1]

Etymology

The word for gout is borrowed from French goutte (“drop, gout”), a modern medical loan.^[2][3][4][5] The French word continues Latin gutta (“drop”).^[6][1] Scriban explains the name of the disease by the old belief that it came from a seeping of the humours, and the REW notes that the Romance descendants of the Latin word mean “gout” as well as “drop” across Romance.^[7][8]

The regional sense “apoplexy, paralysis” DEX takes straight from the Latin word.^[2] The DA explains it within Romanian from the inherited Banat word for “drop”, through the belief that a stroke is caused by a drop of blood falling from the brain onto the heart, and compares Aromanian, German, Italian and Serbian words that mean both “drop” and “stroke”; it rejects a loan from the neighbouring languages.^[4] Cihac and Tamás instead take this sense from Hungarian guta (“stroke”), Tamás arguing that it can only be Hungarian and noting that the word is common in Transylvania.^[9][10] The Hungarian word is recorded from 1546 and is itself a loan from Latin.^[11][12] Ciorănescu compares the same word in Serbian, Croatian, Slovene, Hungarian and Ukrainian.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The sense “apoplexy” is in Klein's dictionary of 1801, as gúta.^[13][10] Tamás names Șincai as its first user, in lovit de guttă “struck by apoplexy”, a phrase the DA quotes from Șincai's chronicle.^[10][4]

Semantic evolution

In Transylvania, Crișana and Maramureș the word means a stroke or paralysis, and it is used in curses: lovi-te-ar guta! “may the stroke hit you!”.^[4][14][15] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 glosses it Latin apoplexia and lovit de gută as “apoplectic”.^[16] The medical sense “gout”, the disease of the joints, came later with the French loan: the DA labels it modern.^[4][17]

Timeline

• 1801 – gúta “apoplexy” in Klein's dictionary.^[13]
• 1825 – gută and lovit de gută in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. gout: a disease caused by deposits of uric acid salts in the joints, which swell with violent pain.^[2][3][1]
2. (regional) apoplexy, paralysis.^[2][18][14]

Word family

• gutos

Usage notes

DEX and the regional sources record two further words of this spelling.^[2][5] DEX's gută² is a thin plastic or nylon line to which a fishing hook is tied, from English gut.^[2][19] MDA2 dates it from DEX 1975, and a Muntenian glossary records it as a nylon fishing line.^[18][20]

In Banat gută means a drop of water or a small quantity, from Latin gutta (“drop”), a word that DER, the DA and Wiktionary hold to be inherited.^[5][4][1] The Anonymus Caransebesiensis (c. 1650–1700) glosses it Latin gutta, and m-a plouat de m-a făcut gută de apă means “I got soaked through”.^[4][18] Tiktin dates the word's first record to about 1400, in a Slavonic manuscript.^[15] MDA2 also has the architectural sense of the drop-shaped ornaments of a Doric entablature.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 455
3. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. gută
4. ^ 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. gută
5. ^ a b c d 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. gută
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 582
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3938
9. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 132
10. ^ a b c Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 394
11. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
12. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
13. ^ 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. 369
14. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. gută
15. ^ 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. gută
16. ^ 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.), p. 250
17. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 431
18. ^ 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, 1033
19. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. gută
20. ^ Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. s.v. gută