lung

Forms

lung m or n (feminine singular lungă, plural lungi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin longus (“long”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Wiktionary takes the Latin word back to Proto-Indo-European *dl̥h₁gʰós (“long”).^[1] De Vaan reconstructs *dlongʰos for Latin and Germanic and notes that the forms of the other branches cannot all be reduced to one.^[6]

The adjective survives in all four branches: Aromanian lungu, Megleno-Romanian lung and Istro-Romanian lung.^[2][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian luang, Italian lungo, Sardinian longu, French long, Occitan lonc, Catalan llong, Spanish luengo and Portuguese longo.^[2][9]

The preposition lângă “beside” is traced to the same Latin word.^[9][10] prelung “elongated” is either formed with pre- or continues Latin perlongus (“very long”), which also gave Aromanian spirlungu.^[2][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1510, in the Slavonic–Romanian documents.^[13] The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has the articled noun lungul “the length”, and the Psaltirea Voronețeană of 1551 has the plural lungi.^[14][15] MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Scheiană of about 1573–1578.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The adjective is used of space and of time: a long road, long days.^[16][13] Of people it means “tall”, often ironically, and of soups and sauces “watery”, so that zeamă lungă or ciorbă lungă is a thin, tasteless dish and also empty talk.^[3][13] In phonetics a long vowel or syllable is one of more than average length.^[16] As an adverb it means “for a long time” or “intently”: a se uita lung “to stare”.^[17] The neuter noun lung “length” lives on in de-a lungul “along” and în lung și în lat “far and wide”.^[17][13]

The old language had compounds such as lung-răbdătoriu “long-suffering” and lungă-răbdare “long-suffering, patience”.^[13] The 17th-century lexicons use lungă to render Slavonic долготерпение “patience”.^[18] Romanian lung passed into Transylvanian Hungarian as lunguj, whose ending comes from the articled form lungul, and into Vlax Romani as lùngo.^[1]

Timeline

• 1510 – first record, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[13]
• early 16th century – lungul in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[14]
• 1551 – lungi in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[15]
• c. 1573–1578 – lung in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic долгий “long” with it.^[19]
• 1688 – lung, lungă, lungul in the Bucharest Bible.^[20]

Meanings

Adjective

1. long: of great length, with its ends far apart.^[16][3][1]
2. Of a person: tall.^[16][3]
3. Of a surface: stretching over a great distance, by extension vast.^[16][3]
4. Of food: watery, thin.^[16][13]
5. Lasting a long time, and in phonetics, of a vowel or syllable: long, of more than average duration.^[16]

Adverb

1. For a long time, at length, and with verbs of looking: intently, in wonder.^[16][17]

Noun

1. (usually articled) length: de-a lungul “along”, în lung și în lat “far and wide”.^[16][17]

Word family

• lungan
• lungăreț
• lungi
• lungime
• lungiș
• îndelung
• îndelunga
• prelung
• prelungi

Related words

• lângă
• Aromanian lungu
• Latin longus

Usage notes

A avea mâna lungă or a fi lung de mână “to have a long hand” means to steal, and a fi lung de limbă or a avea limba lungă “to have a long tongue” means to talk too much and say what one should not.^[16][3] Vorbă lungă is idle talk.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. lung
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, 1405
4. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 86
5. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lung
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 643
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5119
10. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 124
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6416
12. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 967
13. ^ 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. lung
14. ^ 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 22:9
15. ^ 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 90:16
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 605
17. ^ a b c d Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 796
18. ^ 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. lungă
19. ^ 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. lung
20. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 13:18