mânca

Forms

mânca (present mănânc, third-person singular mănâncă or informal mâncă, past participle mâncat), first conjugation.^[1][2] The 16th-century psalters also have a present mărânc: „Mărăncu measerii şi satură-se” “the poor shall eat and be filled”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *manucāre (“to eat”), a reduced form of Latin mandūcō (“to chew, eat”).^{[4][1][5][3][6]} Ciorănescu prefers this form to the *manicāre that Diez, Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu and the REW reconstruct, and compares Italian manucare.^[4] The Latin verb is formed on mandūcus (“glutton”), from mandō (“to chew”).^[1][7]

The present ⟨mănânc⟩ seems to require a form ⟨*mănuc⟩ with an added nasal;^[4] Ivănescu explained it as a cross between ⟨mânc⟩ and ⟨*mănduc⟩.^[4]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian mãc, Megleno-Romanian mănǫnc and Istro-Romanian mărăncu.^[4][8] Elsewhere in Romance the Latin verb gave French manger; Italian mangiare is a borrowing from French.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520): „se uscă inrima mea că uitai a mânca pânrea mea” “my heart withered, for I forgot to eat my bread”.^[5][3] The Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563) has „Luo pănre şi … începu a mânca” “he took bread and began to eat”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Ciorănescu calls it a word of general use across the whole territory.^[4] From “to eat” it took a range of figurative senses: rust eats iron and water eats a riverbank, grief eats a person.^[9] It came to mean “to squander” a fortune, “to embezzle” public money, and, in old texts, “to ruin, destroy” a person.^[4][9] Of the skin it means “to itch”, and of insects “to bite”.^[4][1] The reflexive means “to quarrel, tear each other apart”: se mănâncă ca câinii “they fight like dogs”.^[9] In slang it also means to swallow letters or words in speech or writing.^[10]

The verb is used for soup and other liquid food eaten from a bowl, while bea is used for drinks.^[11] Its derivatives include mâncare “food”, mâncărime “itch” and mâncău “glutton”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[5][12]
• c. 1563 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3]
• 1570 – mănânc in Coresi's Psalter.^[13]
• c. 1600 – mărâncu in a text of the Cuvente den bătrâni collection.^[3]
• 1648 – mănâncă in the New Testament of 1648.^[3]
• 1688 – mânca in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To eat: to chew and swallow food; to use as food.^[2][1]
2. (figurative) To eat away, corrode, wear away.^[9][1]
3. To use up, squander money or a fortune; to embezzle.^[4]
4. (of the skin) To itch: Mă mănâncă palma.^[1][4]
5. (of insects) To bite, sting.^[1]
6. To take, suffer: a mânca bătaie “to get a beating”.^[15][4]
7. (reflexive) To quarrel, tear each other apart.^[4][9]
8. (games) To take an opponent's piece.^[4]

Word family

• mâncare
• mâncărime
• mâncăcios
• mâncău
• mâncător
• mâncătură
• mâncărică
• nemâncat

Related words

• Aromanian mãc
• Latin mandūcō

Usage notes

A mânca pâinea cuiva “to eat someone's bread” means to be in his service or keep.^[2] A crede că tot ce zboară se mănâncă “to think that everything that flies can be eaten” means to be naive.^[2][9] Informal speech has the present forms mânc, mâncă.^[1][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 633
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mânca
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. mânca
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1468
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5592
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 619
9. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mânca
10. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. mânca
11. ^ Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. bea
12. ^ 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 26:3
13. ^ 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 49:14
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 2:17
15. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 489