mâncare

Forms

mâncare f (plural mâncăruri or (dated) mâncări)^[1]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of mânca (“to eat”), formed from Romanian mânca + -re, and is used as a noun both for the act of eating and for food.^[2][3][4][1] The verb is from Vulgar Latin *manucō, a reduced form of Latin mandūcō (“to chew, to eat”), which DER prefers to the reconstruction *manicō.^[5]

The verbal noun has counterparts south of the Danube: Aromanian mãcari and Megleno-Romanian măncari.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century (Psalms 43:13, 54:15, 64:10) and the other 16th-century psalters.^[6][7] MDA2 cites the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578).^[3] Both senses are old: the act in Coresi's Gospel homilies, „se spăla ei mai nainte de mâncare” “they washed before eating”, and food in the Palia of 1581, „să fie voao spre mâncare” “let it be food for you”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The act of eating, the meal (lunch or supper) and the food itself all go back to the old texts.^[4][3] Old figurative senses, “exploitation, plunder”, have died out, as has mâncarea păsărilor “being pecked by birds”.^[4][3] Tiktin quotes Antim for an adverbial cu mâncare “fruitful”.^[7]

The plural split by sense: mâncări is the old plural, and mâncăruri is used for dishes and kinds of food.^[2][1][7] Popular speech made a noun demâncare “food brought to someone” out of the phrase de mâncare, with a diminutive demâncărică.^[7][8] In familiar speech mâncare also means “sort, kind”, as in altă mâncare de pește “another kettle of fish”.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – mâncare in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[6]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][7]
• 1581 – „spre mâncare” “for food” in the Palia.^[4]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[9]
• 1688 – over seventy times in the Bucharest Bible, from Genesis 1:29 on.^[10]
• 1801 – mancáre in Klein's dictionary, glossed with Latin comestio and cibus.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of eating: poftă de mâncare “appetite”.^[2][1]
2. A meal: lunch or supper.^[2]
3. food: what is eaten; a dish or kind of food: de mâncare, de-ale mâncării “food, provisions”.^[2][1]
4. Fodder for animals.^[3]
5. (familiar, pejorative) A sort, a kind.^[2]

Word family

• mâncărică
• demâncare

Related words

• mânca
• Aromanian mãcari

Usage notes

Fixed expressions include a strica mâncarea degeaba “to be good for nothing”, a o duce într-o mâncare și într-o băutură “to live it up”, and asta-i altă mâncare de pește “that is something else entirely”.^[2][3] The plural is mâncăruri for dishes and mâncări for the act.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1468
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mâncare
5. ^ a b 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
6. ^ 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 43:13
7. ^ 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. mâncare
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 819
9. ^ 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. mâncare
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 1:29
11. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 395