iepure

Forms

iepure m (plural iepuri)^[1] Old texts spell it epure: Dosoftei writes „Epurilor scăpare le-ai dat s-aibă” “you gave the hares a refuge”.^[2][3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written епуре.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lepus (“hare”), from its accusative ⟨leporem⟩.^{[4][3][5][6][2][1]} It survives in all four branches: Aromanian ljepure, Megleno-Romanian l'epuri and Istro-Romanian l'epur.^[4][7][8] Albanian borrowed the same Latin word as lepur.^[4][9]

The Romance cognates include Italian lepre, Dalmatian lipro, Sardinian lepere, French lièvre, Occitan lebre, Catalan llebre, Spanish liebre and Portuguese lebre.^[6][10][4] Pușcariu notes that the word is masculine only in Romanian, Albanian, Sardinian and French, and feminine elsewhere.^[6] De Vaan considers the Latin word not to be Indo-European: it may be a loan from Iberian or from a substrate language of Italy.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1502, in the Slavonic–Romanian documents.^[12] In Romanian texts it appears in Psalm 103 (verse 19 in the psalter index), as iepurelui in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century and iepurilor in Coresi's psalter of 1570.^[13] MDA2's first record is Dosoftei's verse psalter.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Besides the hare, iepure names the domestic rabbit, usually as iepure de casă.^[4][14] Transferred senses include a cut of pork, the meat on a pig's ribs, which Ciorănescu compares with Latin musculus from mūs (“mouse”) and French souris; the valve of a smith's bellows; and a mouth disease of cattle.^[4][2][15] In slang it was an infantry soldier, a pupil who skips school, or a student who eats at the canteen without paying.^[4][16]

The hare stands for cowardice: Neculce describes a commander as „grec cu piele de iepure la spate” “a Greek with a hare's skin on his back”.^[12][2] A hare crossing one's path is a bad omen.^[2] Creangă jokingly writes Dumnezeu să-l iepure! for Dumnezeu să-l ierte! “God rest his soul!”.^[12] Romani borrowed the word as Romani yepuro.^[4]

Timeline

• 1502 – first record, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[12]
• early 16th century – iepurelui in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[13]
• 1570 – iepurilor in Coresi's psalter.^[13]
• 1660 – Staicu's lexicon glosses the Slavonic word for “hare”.^[17]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses iepure with Latin lepus, Hungarian nyúl and German Hase.^[18]
• 1862 – iepure de casă “rabbit” in Pontbriant.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. hare: a genus of rodent mammals with long ears, extra upper incisors, hind legs longer than the forelegs and a very short tail; an animal of this genus, hunted for its meat and fur.^[5][1]
2. iepure de casă: the domestic rabbit.^[3][19][1]
3. (regional) The layer of meat on a pig's ribs.^[4][15][20]
4. (technical) The valve of a smith's bellows; a mouth disease of cattle.^[4][2]
5. (slang, dated) A pupil who skips school without excuse; a student who eats at the canteen without paying.^[16]

Word family

• iepuroaică
• iepuresc
• iepurește
• iepurar
• iepurime
• iepurărie
• iepuraș

Related words

• Aromanian ljepure
• Albanian lepur
• Latin lepus

Usage notes

Common sayings are nu știi de unde sare iepurele “you never know where the hare will jump from”, that is, help or a solution may come unexpectedly, and cine fuge după doi iepuri nu prinde nici unul “he who runs after two hares catches neither”.^[5][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. iepure
3. ^ 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, 1106
4. ^ 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. iepure
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 488
6. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 66
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 625
8. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
9. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4991
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. iépure
13. ^ a b c 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 103:19
14. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 310
15. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1925), Graiul și folklorul Maramureșului, București: Cultura Națională, p. 222
16. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. iepure
17. ^ 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. iepure
18. ^ 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. 271
19. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. iepure
20. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. iepure