lut

Forms

lut n (plural luturi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lutum (“mud, dirt, clay”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian lut, Megleno-Romanian lut and Istro-Romanian lut.^{[2][8][9][10]} Its Romance cognates include Italian loto, Sardinian ludu, Catalan llot, Spanish lodo and Portuguese lodo.^[2][11] Modern Greek λοῦτος (loûtos) seems to come from Romanian.^[2]

De Vaan derives the Latin noun from Proto-Indo-European *l(H)u-to- (“dirt”) and compares Old Irish loth (“dirt”), Ancient Greek λῦμα (lûma, “dirty water”) and Albanian lym (“mud”).^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century (Ps 71:9, 102:14).^[13] The DLR quotes the Psaltirea Scheiană for clay vessels: „a vas de lut frânge-i” “break them like a vessel of clay” (Ps 2:9).^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word meant potter's clay and building clay, and the old texts speak of vessels and houses of clay.^[5] The Bible image of man made of clay gave the poetic sense “the body”: the Bible of 1688 has „Lut m-ai zidit” “thou hast made me of clay”, and Eminescu uses lutul for a dead body.^[3][14] Phrases include a fi ca lutul în mâna olarului “to be like clay in the potter's hand”, of a person easily swayed, and lut verde, green clay for decorating peasant houses.^[15][4]

Regionally, in Oltenia and Muntenia, it also means grime on the skin.^[4][16] Derivatives include lutărie “clay pit”, lutos “clayey”, perhaps directly from lutōsus, and lutui “to plaster with clay”.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – the first records, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[13]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, for Slavonic words for mud and clay.^[17]
• 1676 – Lutul, a place name in Oltenia.^[18]
• 1688 – about thirty times in the Bucharest Bible.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. clay, loam: a yellow or brown sedimentary rock of clay and fine sand, used in pottery, building and sculpture;^[15][4] luturi are kinds of clay: o oală de lut.^[15][4]
2. Earth, soil;^[15][4] (figurative) a dead body.^[15][4]
3. (regional) Grime on the skin.^[4][16]

Word family

• lutărie
• lutos
• lutui

Related words

• Aromanian lut
• Latin lutum

Usage notes

DLR and MDA2 also list lut as a variant of lot.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ a b 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. lut
3. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lut
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1409
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lut
6. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 86
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5189
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 645
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 176
10. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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 71:9
14. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 762
15. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 606
16. ^ a b Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. 242
17. ^ 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. lut
18. ^ Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. lut
19. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isaiah 45:9