jucare

Forms

jucare f (plural jucări)^[1] The plural is jucări.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of juca “to play”, formed from Romanian juca + -re.^[2][3][1] The verb continues a popular Latin active *iocō in place of the classical deponent iocor (“to joke”), and has cognates in Aromanian, Megleno- and Istro-Romanian and in Italian giocare, French jouer and Spanish jugar.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Cazania I of 1564, and he glosses the old noun as both “dancing” and “playing”.^[3] MDA2 dates it to Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The noun took over the senses of the verb, and so meant both dancing and play;^[4][3] DER notes that Pușcariu explained the dancing sense of juca as a calque of Slavonic играти (igrati), while he himself thought it could have grown inside Romanian.^[4][3] The dance sense is the one the old lexicons give: the 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use jucare for Slavonic words for dancing, and the Lexicon de la Buda and Pisone gloss it with Latin saltatio.^[6][7][8] Barcianu in 1886 gave both “playing” and “dancing”.^[9] MDA2 lists a long series of senses parallel to those of jucat: play, joking, mockery, gambling and the stake at cards.^[2] Tiktin marks the word as dated; joc and jucat are the usual nouns today.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1564 – first record, in Coresi's Cazania I.^[3]
• 1581 – in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[2]
• c. 1660 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, for Slavonic “dancing”.^[6]
• 1801 – jucáre in Klein's dictionary, glossed lusus “play”.^[10]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda, glossed saltatio “dancing”.^[7]
• 1886 – Barcianu: “playing, dancing”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) play, playing; a game.^[2][3][1]
2. (dated) dancing.^[3][9]
3. Joking; making fun of someone, mockery; not taking something seriously.^[2][1]
4. Playing at cards or games of chance; staking money.^[2]

Related words

• joc
• jucat
• jucărie
• jucător

Usage notes

MDA2 gives jucat as the synonym for most senses.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1289
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. jucáre
4. ^ a b c 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. juca
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4585
6. ^ 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
7. ^ 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. 336
8. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss
9. ^ a b c Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 335
10. ^ 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. 471