linte

Forms

linte f (plural linți)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lēns (“lentil”), continuing its accusative form ⟨lentem⟩.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian linti and Megleno-Romanian linti.^[2][6][7] Its Romance cognates are Italian lente and Friulian lint; most other Romance languages use the diminutive lenticula, as in French lentille.^[2][8][9]

The Latin word has no reconstructable Indo-European source: de Vaan compares Old Church Slavonic лѧшта (lęšta) and Old High German linsa, too similar to be chance yet impossible to unite in one preform, and thinks of a loan from a non-Indo-European language of Europe.^[10] Romanian later borrowed the doublet lentilă from the French word.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Palia de la Orăștie (1581–1582), at Genesis 25:34, where Jacob gives Esau bread and lentil stew: „mâncare fiiartă den linte” “food boiled from lentils”.^[11][12][3] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 glosses it with Slavonic лѧща and сочиво.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The word names the plant and, collectively, its seeds, and the dish cooked from them.^[12][3] The biblical story gave the phrase pentru un blid de linte “for a bowl of lentils”, said of a betrayal for a trifling gain.^[4][3] Până la un bob de linte “to the last lentil” means “absolutely everything”.^[4]

From the small round seeds, the plural linți came to name the cysts of the pork tapeworm (cysticerci) and the disease they cause in pigs, recorded in the Calimach Code.^[11][4] Compounds name other plants: linte broștească or lintea broaștei “duckweed” and lintea pratului, a vetchling.^[11][3] The diminutive lintiță means duckweed and also freckles.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1581–1582 – first record, in the Palia de la Orăștie (Genesis 25:34).^[11][12]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – linte in the Bucharest Bible.^[14][12]
• 1792 – 3 oca de linte “three okas of lentils” in a document of the Uricariul.^[12]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon of Buda, with Latin lens and Hungarian lencse.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. lentil: a leguminous plant with bluish-white flowers and pods holding flat edible seeds (Lens culinaris); its seeds.^[4][3][1]
2. A dish of lentils.^[3][12]
3. (veterinary, popular) Cysticercosis of pigs.^[4]
4. (popular, plural linți) Cysticerci, the larval cysts of the tapeworm.^[4][11]

Word family

• lintiță

Related words

• Aromanian linti
• Latin lēns

Usage notes

Set phrases: pentru un blid de linte “for a trifle” (of a betrayal) and până la un bob de linte “absolutely everything”.^[4][3]

References

1. ^ a b c 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. linte
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, 1374
4. ^ 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. 594
5. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 167
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 590
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 171
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4979
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. linte
12. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. linte
13. ^ 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. linte
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 25:34
15. ^ 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. 355