lacom

Forms

lacom m or n (feminine singular lacomă, masculine plural lacomi, feminine/neuter plural lacome)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic лакомъ (lakomŭ, “greedy”), the Old Church Slavonic adjective.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu calls the source Slavonic and Bulgarian and cites Miklosich and Cihac for it; the word lives on in modern Bulgarian лаком (lakom).^[2][6] The Slavonic word renders Ancient Greek λαίμαργος (laímargos, “gluttonous”) in the Codex Suprasliensis and means “greedy, covetous, mean”.^[7] It goes back to Proto-Slavic *olkomъ (“greedy”), which Wiktionary explains as a passive participle of *olkati (“to gobble a drink, to feel hunger”), reinterpreted as an adjective.^[1][8]

Ciorănescu records the word in Megleno-Romanian as well, Megleno-Romanian lacum.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Apostol of 1563, at 1 Corinthians 5:10, where Paul names the greedy among the sinners.^[3] The DA quotes Coresi's homiletic gospel: „Celuia ce nu-i trebuiaște mult, acela nu poate fi lacom, nici iubitoriu de avuție” “he who does not need much cannot be greedy, nor a lover of wealth”.^[9] MDA2 dates its first record to Varlaam's Cazania of 1643.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word covered both greed for food and greed for money or goods;^[10] Tiktin glosses it “greedy, lustful” and, used absolutely, “gluttonous”, with lacom de bani “greedy for money”.^[3] The DA gives the same two sides, the eater who never has enough and, figuratively, the man who wants ever more, built with de, la or după.^[9] As a noun it meant a greedy man, and Tiktin also records it as a name of the wolverine.^[3] MDA2 adds a rare sense of grafted branches that grow too fast.^[4] Tiktin and MDA2 note a Moldavian and Bukovinian variant lacum.^[3][4] The adverb lacom “greedily” goes with verbs of eating and drinking.^[4][5]

The derivatives lăcomi and lăcomie were themselves taken from the corresponding Slavonic verb and noun.^[2] Ciorănescu holds that Hungarian lákom and the Transylvanian Saxon forms were borrowed from Romanian.^[2]

Timeline

• 1563 – lacom in Coresi's Apostol (1 Corinthians 5:10), the first record.^[3]
• 1643 – in Varlaam's Cazania.^[4]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic words for “greedy”.^[10]
• 1688 – lacom and lacomii in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it Latin cupidus, avidus and edax, vorax.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. greedy for food and drink, gluttonous; also as a noun, a glutton.^[5][4]
2. (figurative) avid, insatiable, eager to have as much as possible, with de, la or după: lacom de bani “greedy for money”.^[5][3]

Adverb

1. Greedily, voraciously: Copilul mânca lacom din farfurie.^[4][5]

Word family

• lăcomos
• nelacom

Related words

• lăcomi
• lăcomie
• Old Church Slavonic лакомъ (lakomŭ)

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. lacom
3. ^ 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. lacom
4. ^ 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, 1302
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 574
6. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 3, 291
7. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
8. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b 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. lacom
10. ^ 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, p. s.v. lacom
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 1 Cor 5:11
12. ^ 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. 340