junincă

Forms

junincă f (plural juninci)^[1] The older form junice appears in a lexicon of c. 1660–1670 and in the Bucharest Bible of 1688; it survives in folk speech: „Numără părul de pe o junice” “count the hairs on a heifer” (Rădulescu-Codin).^[2][3][4] Junică is another variant: „Opincuță de junică” “a little sandal of heifer hide” (a folklore collection).^[4][5] In Maramureș and Sălaj the word is jurincă.^[4][6][7]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin iūnīx (“young cow, heifer”), from the accusative iūnīcem.^[4][8][6][1] Candrea and Densusianu explain the form with a second /n/ as a repetition of the /n/ before the following consonant, and the Maramureș form with /r/ as a dissimilation of it.^[9] Ciorănescu lists the word as a variant under junice, and the REW also gives that form beside it.^[10][11] The Latin word is related to iuvenis (“young”).^[12]

Its Romance cognates are few: French génisse continues a Vulgar Latin derivative of the same word, and Calabrian has janizza.^[10][1] The REW adds forms in Franche-Comté, southern France and Valencia.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the old form junice, glossing Old Church Slavonic юница (junica, “heifer”) in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of c. 1660–1670 and in four later ones.^[2] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 also has junice.^[3] The form junincă is in Klein's dictionary of 1801 and in the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825, which MDA2 gives as its first record.^[13][6][14]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its Latin sense: a young cow that has not yet calved.^[4][8] Dictionaries put its age differently: between one and two years for DEX, two to three for NODEX, and two years in Maramureș.^[8][15][7] MDA2 labels it regional and equates it with juncă, a word of the same sense.^[6] The diminutives junincuță and juninciță are in Marian and the Lexicon de la Buda.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1660–1670 – junice in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, the first record.^[2]
• 1688 – junice in the Bucharest Bible.^[3]
• 1801 – junincă in Klein's dictionary.^[13]
• 1825 – junincă and the diminutive junincuță in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[14][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) A heifer: a young cow, about one to two years old, that has not yet calved.^[8][4][6][1]

Related words

• junc
• juncă
• june

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. junice
3. ^ a b c Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Iosia 10:11
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. junincă
5. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 709
6. ^ 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, 1293
7. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. junincă
8. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 569
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. junincă
10. ^ a b 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. junice
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4626
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. 471
14. ^ 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. 338
15. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. junincă