iarbă

Forms

iarbă f (plural ierburi)^[1] The old plural is ierbi;^[2][3][4] ierburi is a later form that is replacing it.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin herba (“grass, herb”).^{[2][5][3][6][1]} The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian earbã, Megleno-Romanian iarbă and Istro-Romanian iorbe.^[2][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian erba, Occitan erba, French herbe, Spanish hierba and Portuguese herva.^[2][5]

The Latin word is traditionally derived from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreh₁- (“to grow, become green”), but de Vaan doubts this and leaves its origin open.^[1][9]

Pușcariu took the plural in -uri from a Latin *ervora, the plural of ervum (“bitter vetch”);^[2] Ciorănescu rejects this, since Romanian often forms such collective plurals beside older ones, as treabă does.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is in the earliest Romanian psalter, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, at Psalm 105:21.^[10] Tiktin's first record is the Codicele Voronețean, at James 1:11, and MDA2 also cites that text, of about 1563–1583.^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

Beyond grass as fodder, the word came to mean weeds, a meadow, a plant in general and a medicinal herb, iarbă de leac.^[2][6][11] Romanian also used it for gunpowder, a sense the REW notes, and Aromanian has a verb for filling a gun with powder built on it.^[2][5] Recent slang uses it for marijuana or hashish.^[3]

Many plant names are compounds of the word: iarba-broaștei “frogbit”, iarba-fiarelor “swallowwort”, and iarbă-de-mare “eelgrass”.^[6] Its derivatives include ierbos “grassy”, ierbar “herbarium; rumen”, ierbărie “weeds; store of gunpowder” and înierba “to grass over”.^[2]

Timeline

• early 16th century – iarbă in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 105:21).^[10]
• c. 1551–1558 – in the Psaltirea de la Voroneț (Psalm 103:15).^[12]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean (James 1:11).^[11][3]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. grass: the general name for herbaceous plants with thin green stems and leaves, used as fodder; also freshly cut green fodder.^[6][3]
2. (plural ierburi) Weeds of all kinds;^[6][3] iarbă rea “a poisonous weed”, figuratively “a dangerous person”.^[6][3]
3. A meadow, a lawn: Copiii s-au întins pe iarbă.^[6][3]
4. (popular, plural) ierburi de leac “medicinal herbs”; also herbs used to season food.^[3]
5. (slang) marijuana or hashish.^[3]

Word family

• ierbărie
• ierbar
• ierbărit
• ierbos
• înierba

Related words

• Aromanian earbã

Usage notes

Paște, murgule, iarbă verde “graze, my horse, on green grass” tells someone they will wait a long time for what they want;^[6][3] din pământ, din iarbă verde means “at any cost”.^[6][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. iarbă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1098
4. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 611
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4109
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 484
7. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 430
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 152
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 105:21
11. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. iarbă
12. ^ 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 103:15
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. s.v. iarbă