legumă

Forms

legumă f (plural legume)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin legūmen (“pulse, leguminous plant”).^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} Its Romance cognates include Italian legume, Portuguese legume, Old French leun and Spanish legumbre.^[2] The Latin word is of uncertain origin, possibly connected with legō (“to gather”).^[1]

The modern sense “garden vegetable” owes much to French légume: Scriban marks it as a neologism, and the DN gives the French word as the source of “vegetable” and of the botanical “pod”.^[7][8] MDN gives Latin alone.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581, which has „De toate legumile să mâncăm” “let us eat of all the vegetables”.^[3][10] Tiktin's first record is a Slavonic–Romanian document of 1588.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word means plants eaten as food, often beside bread: a law code speaks of the gardener who steals legumi sau poame “vegetables or fruit”.^[10] In the south, and in Oltenia in particular, it came to mean anything eaten with bread or polenta, such as meat, cheese or eggs: Ispirescu's „Aci la cârciumă se găsi legumă: ouă, brânză, sardele; dară pâne, nu” “here at the tavern there was something to eat with bread: eggs, cheese, sardines; but no bread”.^[7][5] Regionally it also means the fruit of orchard trees, and in Transylvania and Moldavia weeds among cereals.^[3] DEX adds the figurative sense “a person reduced to a vegetative existence”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1581 – „De toate legumile să mâncăm” in Coresi's Carte de învățătură, the first record.^[3][10]
• 1588 – a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[5]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses legúma with Latin legumen and olus.^[11]
• 1974 – legume-fructe “greengrocer's shop” in the press.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vegetable: a plant such as beans, potatoes or onions grown for food: Cumpără legume de la piață.^[4][3][1]
2. (rare, usually plural) Food, fare;^[4][7] (regional) what is eaten with bread or polenta.^[4][7]
3. (botany) A legume, a dry fruit opening along two valves; a pod.^[8][9]
4. (regional) The fruit of orchard trees; weeds in cereal crops.^[3]
5. (figurative) A person reduced to a vegetative existence.^[4]

Word family

• legumicol
• legumos
• legumărie
• legumi

Usage notes

Old texts use the plural legumi, and DLRM records a plural legumuri beside legume.^[10][5][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. legumă
3. ^ 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, 1342
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 584
5. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. legumă
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4972
7. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 738
8. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. legumă
9. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. legumă
10. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. legumă
11. ^ 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. 389
12. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. legumă
13. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 452