lapte

Forms

lapte n (plural lăpturi)^[1] Two plurals have special meanings: lăpturi “milk products, kinds of milk” and the masculine lapți “milt, soft roe of fish”.^[2][3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written лапте.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin lactem (“milk”), the late accusative of Latin lac (“milk”).^[2][4][1] DEX, MDA2 and the DLR cite the classical noun with its genitive.^[5][6][7] The accusative form is attested as early as Petronius, and late antiquity also had a nominative lactis.^[1] The masculine plural lapți “milt” continues the Latin plural lactēs (“small intestines”), with the same sense as French laitance and Italian latti di pesce.^[2][8]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian lapte, Megleno-Romanian lapti and Istro-Romanian lǫpte.^[2][9][10] Its Romance cognates include Italian latte, French lait, Catalan llet, Spanish leche and Portuguese leite.^[2][11] De Vaan traces the Latin word to Proto-Indo-European *glg-t- (“milk”), like Ancient Greek γάλα (gála), though its origin is debated.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1517.^[3] The early 16th-century Psaltirea Hurmuzaki has laptele (Psalm 118:70).^[13] MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), in the canticle that speaks of „lapte de oaie” “sheep's milk” beside cow's butter.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

The sense has stayed “milk”, of the mother and of the domestic animals, with the white juice of some plants as an extension.^[2][3] Coresi's Evanghelie compares the saints to sheep that give wool and milk, and Ureche tells of a ruler whose 10,000 white mares were kept only for milking.^[7]

Many compounds and phrases grew around it: lapte bătut “buttermilk”, lapte acru “soured milk”, frați de lapte “children nursed by the same woman”, dinți de lapte “milk teeth” and Calea Laptelui “the Milky Way”.^[3][5] Lapte de pasăre, literally “bird's milk”, meant something impossible to get and is now a dessert of milk, eggs and sugar.^[3][5] Plant names include laptele-câinelui and laptele-cucului for kinds of spurge.^[5]

Timeline

• 1517 – the first record that Tiktin gives.^[3]
• early 16th century – laptele in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[13]
• c. 1573–1578 – lapte de oaie in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[6][7]
• 1649 – lapte in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – the word is frequent in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. milk: the white, nourishing liquid made by the mammary glands of female mammals, the only food of a nursing baby or young animal.^[5][1]
2. Milk of domestic animals as food: lapte de vacă, lapte acru, lapte bătut.^[6][5]
3. (rare, plural lăpturi) Kinds of milk and milk products.^[5][1]
4. The milky sap of some plants.^[2][3]

Word family

• lăptișor
• lăptar
• lăptăreasă
• lăptărie
• laptagiu
• lăptos
• lăptuc

Related words

• alăpta
• lapți
• lăptucă
• mulge
• Aromanian lapte
• Latin lac

Usage notes

De lapte describes animals kept for milk or not yet weaned: vacă de lapte “dairy cow”, purcel de lapte “suckling pig”.^[5] The masculine plural lapți means the milt of fish.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. lapte
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. lápte
4. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 577
6. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1311
7. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lapte
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4828
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 615
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 165
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4817
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 118:70
14. ^ 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. lapte
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 18:8