ierbos

Forms

ierbos m or n (feminine singular ierboasă, masculine plural ierboși, feminine/neuter plural ierboase)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin herbōsus (“grassy”), an adjective formed on herba (“grass, vegetation”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEX gives the Latin adjective or a native formation from Romanian iarbă + -os as equal possibilities.^[6] MDA2 and Tiktin derive it from iarbă alone.^[7][8]

The Latin adjective lives on in the other Romance languages: Italian erboso, French herbeux, Occitan erbos, Spanish herboso and Portuguese ervoso.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1683, in Dosoftei's lives of the saints;^[8][7] MDA2 names the same work, printed at Iași in 1682–1686.^[8][7] The sense there is “grassy”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is of land: “covered with grass, rich in grass”.^[6][7] A botanical sense followed, “herbaceous”, of plants whose stems stay soft and green and do not turn to wood;^[8][9] Tiktin quotes it from a gardening book, which contrasts the woody plants with the ierboase ones.^[8][9] The 1825 Lexicon of Buda gives it with Latin herbōsus and grāminōsus, Hungarian füves and German grasig.^[10] DLRLC calls the grass sense rare.^[11]

Timeline

• 1683 – the first record, in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[8][7]
• 1825 – erbosu in the Lexicon of Buda.^[10]
• 1931 – CADE defines the botanical sense “herbaceous”.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of land: covered with grass, grassy.^[6][7][1]
2. (botany) Of plants: herbaceous, with a soft green stem that does not become woody.^[6][9][1]

Related words

• iarbă
• Latin herbōsus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 135
3. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4111
4. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 617
5. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 303
6. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 488
7. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1107
8. ^ 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. ierbós
9. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. ierbos
10. ^ 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. 206
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 486