măciucă

Forms

măciucă f (plural măciuci)^[1]

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *matteūca (“club”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} This form is built on *mattea, which is preserved in the Latin diminutive mateola (“mallet”).^[4][7][1] Its Romance cognates include French massue and Italian mazzocchio, and the simpler form continues in Italian mazza and masse.^[4][5] DHLF also derives the French word from this Vulgar Latin form, citing the Romanian one.^[8] Wiktionary notes that the suffix -ūca may be Gaulish, and gives an alternative source, Late Latin mattia.^[1]

Ciorănescu rejects the Latin derivation, since it rests on a rare Latin diminutive and a suffix held to be Gaulish.^[9] He sees an expressive formation on a root ⟨măc-⟩ (compare moacă), formed like căciulă, with an original form ⟨*măciugă⟩, and compares Spanish machucar (“to beat with a club”) built on the same idea of a round object.^[9] Tiktin explains the regional forms with ⟨b-⟩ by Hungarian bötök (“knob, bulb”).^[4]

The word is found south of the Danube: Aromanian mãtsucã and Megleno-Romanian măcioc.^[9][10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the personal name Măciucă in a document of 1439.^[4] The plural măciuci is in the Lexicon Stamatie (c. 1660–1670), and MDA2 dates the word in Romanian texts from Dosoftei's Viața și petrecerea sfinților (1682–1686), where it is the club used as a weapon.^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is a heavy club with a knob at one end, sometimes bound with iron, used as a weapon in the past;^[3][4] Bălcescu lists it among the weapons of the Moldavians beside the sabre and the broadsword.^[3][4] From the club the word passed to its knob and the thick end of other things, to a blow with a club, and regionally to mallets, sticks and the thick parts of plants.^[3][2] The phrase a i se face părul măciucă “to have one's hair stand on end” compares bristling hair with a spiked club, according to Tiktin.^[4] In the 20th century the word took on the senses of the Indian club of rhythmic gymnastics and, in slang, the penis, recorded in the press in 1994.^[2][12][13]

The word was borrowed into the neighbouring languages: Bulgarian мачук (mačuk), Polish maczuga, Hungarian macsuka and Modern Greek ματσούκα (matsoúka).^[9][1] Roesler and Cihac had derived the Romanian word from the Greek one.^[9]

Timeline

• 1439 – the personal name Măciucă in a document.^[4]
• c. 1660–1670 – măciuci in the Lexicon Stamatie.^[11]
• 1682–1686 – măciucă “club” in Dosoftei's Viața și petrecerea sfinților.^[3]
• 1688 – măciuci for the knobs of the temple pillars in the Bucharest Bible, 2 Chronicles 4:12–13.^[14]
• 1825 – măciucă “knotted club”, with the diminutive măciucuță, in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[15]
• 1994 – the slang sense “penis” in a newspaper.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. a club or cudgel, much thicker and often bound with iron at one end, formerly also a weapon.^[2][3][1]
2. the thick rounded end of a stick or of another object, a knob; by extension, a blow with a club.^[2]
3. (botany, popular) a capsule.^[2]
4. (sport) an Indian club used in rhythmic gymnastics.^[2]
5. (slang) the penis.^[3][13][1]

Word family

• măciucaș
• măciucar
• măciucat
• măciucos
• măciulie
• mașcat

Related words

• Aromanian mãtsucã
• Latin mateola

Usage notes

A i se face (cuiva) părul măciucă means “to be terrified, to have one's hair stand on end”.^[2] The proverb ajunge o măciucă la un car de oale “one club is enough for a cartload of pots” means that a hint is enough for someone who understands.^[4][16] Măciuca-ciobanului “the shepherd's club” is the globe thistle (Echinops sphaerocephalus).^[3][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 626
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1446
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. măciucă
5. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5426
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 152
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. massue
9. ^ 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. măciucă
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 671
11. ^ 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. măciuci
12. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. măciúcă
13. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. măciucă
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 2 Chr 4:12
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. 366
16. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 783