liliac

liliac¹ lilac

Forms

liliac m (plural lilieci)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the plant is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish لیلاق (leylak).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEX and MDA2 compare Bulgarian лиляк (liljak),^[2][3] and the DLR derives the word from the Bulgarian one,^[6] which BER in turn takes from Turkish and names as the source of the Romanian word.^[7]

The Turkish word is from Arabic لَيْلَك (laylak), from Persian لیلک (līlak),^[1][4] a variant of نیلک (nīlak, “bluish”), from نیل (nīl, “indigo, blue”).^[8][9] The same word spread across Europe: Modern Greek λειλάκι (leiláki), Polish lilak, Hungarian lila, Spanish lila, Italian lillà and French lilas.^[4] It has counterparts south of the Danube in Aromanian lilic and Megleno-Romanian liliac.^[4] DER and Tiktin think that its form was assimilated to that of the bat (homograph 2).^[4][5] Wiktionary calls it a doublet of lila.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to 1818, in Ion Budai-Deleanu's lexicon, where the DLR finds the variant lileac.^[3][6] The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) gives the plant as its second sense, with the Transylvanian names scrinte, scumpie, iorgovan and boroștean.^[10][5]

Semantic evolution

The name spread from the garden shrub Syringa vulgaris to its flower and to other shrubs: liliac de munte is the green alder (Alnus viridis), liliac de pădure the mezereon (Daphne mezereum), and liliac franțuzesc or nemțesc the Persian lilac.^[11][3][5] Regionally the shrub has other names: iorgovan in the Banat, scrinte, scumpie and mălin in Transylvania.^[12][13][11] DER derives from it the colour adjective liliachiu “lilac-coloured”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1818 – first record, in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon.^[3][6]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda, as its second sense.^[10]
• 1929 – Panțu's botanical dictionary gives the Transylvanian and Banat names.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. lilac: a tall shrub with oval leaves and fragrant clusters of white or violet flowers, grown as an ornamental (Syringa vulgaris); iorgovan, mălin.^[2][3]
2. The flower of this shrub.^[2]

Word family

• liliachiu

liliac² bat

Forms

liliac m (plural lilieci)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the animal is borrowed from Bulgarian лиляк (liljak).^[2][3][6][1] DER and Scriban start instead from Old Church Slavonic лиликъ (lilikŭ),^[4][13] which named a water bird, the diver.^[4] DER compares Serbo-Croatian ljiljak and Ukrainian ли́ли́к (lýlýk), both “bat”,^[4][1] and Wiktionary adds Macedonian лилјак (liljak).^[1] Wiktionary explains the Bulgarian word as probably лил (lil, “membrane”) with a suffix, while Tiktin reports Berneker's view that it belongs to a group of onomatopoeic names for flying animals in Slavic and Baltic.^[1][5]

Older views tie the word to the names of the stork: Șăineanu and Scriban derive it from the Turkish name of the stork, from Arabic لقلق (laqlaq).^[13][14][15] DER thinks that the stork words, Serbo-Croatian lelek, Modern Greek λέλεκας (lélekas) and Albanian lejlek among them, come from Turkish independently of the bat words, and Tiktin also keeps them apart.^[4][5] DER lists Aromanian lelic here, but Papahagi and Pascu gloss it as “stork”.^[4][16][17] Hungarian liliák probably comes from the Romanian word.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Romanian translation of Herodotus of 1645, which says of winged snakes that their wings are not of feathers but like a bat's.^[5][11] The Bible of 1688 lists the bat among the birds that are not to be eaten: „Și barza și șoimul … și pupăza și liliacul”, translating Greek νυκτερίς (nukterís).^[5][18]

Semantic evolution

Dimitrie Cantemir wrote of „liliacul carele cu aripile zbura” “the bat, which flew with its wings” in his Istoria ieroglifică (1705).^[11][14] Folklore gave the animal a large place: a mouse that eats the Easter bread turns into a bat, and witches use bats' bones in love charms.^[11][5] The proverb umblă noaptea ca liliecii “he roams at night like the bats” is in Anton Pann, and stă ascuns ca un liliac is said of someone who lives a hidden life.^[11] Regionally the word also names the long-eared mouse and a moroi, a ghost.^[3]

Timeline

• 1645 – first record, in the Romanian translation of Herodotus.^[5]
• 1688 – liliacul in the Bucharest Bible (Leviticus 11:19, Deuteronomy 14:18).^[5][18]
• 1705 – in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[11]
• 1825 – the first sense in the Lexicon de la Buda, with Latin vespertilio.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bat: a small insectivorous mammal like a mouse, with wings formed of a membrane joining the long fingers, the hind legs and the tail, which comes out at night (Plecotus auritus, Nyctalus noctula).^[2][3]
2. (regional) The long-eared mouse; potlogar.^[3]
3. (regional) A moroi, a ghost.^[3]