lăuruscă

Forms

lăuruscă f (plural lăuruște)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin labrusca (“wild vine”).^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu, the REW and the DA give the same etymon.^[2] The origin of the Latin word is unknown;^[7][8] Nocentini takes it for a loan from an unidentified source, as many wine terms are.^[7][8]

Its Romance cognates include Italian lambrusca, French lambruche and Spanish labrusca.^[2][6] Albanian has a loan from the same Latin word, Albanian larushk;^[9] Bonnet sees in the Romanian form a trace of the stage in which the Latin /b/ before /r/ became a spirant before it disappeared.^[9]

The many regional variants have their own explanations in DLR: forms with initial ⟨r-⟩ by regressive assimilation, lărăuscă and rărăuscă by metathesis, and rourușcă by association with rouă “dew”, which Ciorănescu also notes.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1670, in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, which glosses Leurushe with Latin Labrusca.^[5][10] The meaning was the wild vine.^[5] MDA2's first record is Dosoftei, quoted by Hasdeu, in Isaiah's parable of the vineyard: „ș-am așteptat să facă via struguri de poamă, iară ea face lăuruscă” “and I waited for the vineyard to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes”.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

In the old literary language DLRLV records it from Moldavia and the Banat.^[10] The DA extends the name from the plant to its small sour fruit.^[11] In the 19th and 20th centuries poets such as Anghel and Topîrceanu used it for the wild vine of the countryside.^[4][12] MDA2 adds a rare botanical sense: the fox grape brought from North America, Vitis labrusca, whose fruit tastes of strawberries.^[3] DEX labels the word regional.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1670 – Leurushe glossing Labrusca in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, the first record.^[5][10]
• 17th century – lăuruscă “wild grapes” in Dosoftei's Isaiah, quoted by Hasdeu.^[3][5]
• 1870 – Lăuruscă “a wild vine and its small grapes” in Costinescu's dictionary, glossed with French lambruche.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) The wild vine (Vitis silvestris), whose clusters bear small black, sour berries; also its fruit.^{[13][4][3][1]}
2. (rare) The fox grape (Vitis labrusca), a North American vine with strawberry-tasting grapes.^[3]

Related words

• Latin labrusca

Usage notes

DEX lists the variants laurușcă, răuruscă and rourușcă;^[13][3] MDA2 records over twenty regional forms, among them leurușcă, rărușcă and râurușcă.^[13][3] Muntenian speakers also call the plant agurizar, according to Scriban.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. lăuruscă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1330
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lăuruscă
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lăuruscă
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4814
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
10. ^ a b c Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 166
11. ^ 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. lăuruscă
12. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 735
13. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 582
14. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 22
15. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 734