măgar

Forms

măgar m (plural măgari, feminine equivalent măgăriță)^[1] Vasile Lupu's law code of 1646 has the old form măgariul: „Muiaria lui să tragă măgariul de dălogul căpestrului” “his wife shall lead the donkey by the rein of the halter”.^[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[4][1] According to MDA2 it is borrowed from Albanian magar, with Bulgarian магаре (magare, “donkey”) as a second source;^[3] DEX 2009 and the DLR only compare the Albanian and Bulgarian nouns.^[5][2] Wiktionary takes it as possibly a substrate word, akin to the Albanian one or borrowed from it,^[1] and its Albanian entry derives the Albanian noun from a substrate together with the Romanian word.^[1]

Ciorănescu derives it from Latin onāgrārius, dissimilated to Vulgar Latin *onagarius; the expected Romanian ⟨*unăgariu⟩ would then have been dissimilated again in the phrase ⟨un *năgar⟩, which was reanalysed as ⟨un măgar⟩; he compares Rabelais's French onagrier.^[4] Wiktionary calls this explanation less likely.^[1]

An older view, which Ciorănescu says had been held almost everywhere (Miklosich, Cihac, Philippide, Pușcariu, Vasmer), took the word from Modern Greek γομάρι (gomári), the source of Albanian gomar.^[4] Scriban derived both Albanian forms from the Greek word.^[6] The Greek noun comes from Medieval Greek γομάριον (gomárion, “load of a pack animal”), a diminutive of Ancient Greek γόμος (gómos, “ship's cargo, load”).^[7][8] Tiktin traced the Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek words alike to Arabic حمار (ḥimār, “donkey”);^[9] Berneker held the origin to be unknown.^[4]

The word is also found south of the Danube: Megleno-Romanian măgar.^[4][10] Capidan derives the Megleno-Romanian word from the Bulgarian one.^[10] Ciorănescu, on the contrary, takes the Albanian and Bulgarian nouns and Serbo-Croatian magarac from Romanian,^[4] and Wiktionary's Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian entries give Romanian or Albanian as their source.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Moxa's chronicle of 1620.^[9] MDA2's first record is Vasile Lupu's law code of 1646, where a man's wife is to lead his donkey by the halter.^[3][2] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use the word from 1649 on, to render Slavonic terms for the wild ass and the donkey-driven mill.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The Bible of 1688 uses the word throughout for the domestic donkey, as in Genesis 12:16, where Abram receives sheep, oxen and donkeys.^[9][12] As an insult it is recorded from the early 18th century: a text says of a ruler that he held Turks, Moldavians and Hungarians “like donkeys”.^[2] Today it is an epithet for a stupid, stubborn or insolent person,^[5] and Scriban adds a bad pupil, the class's măgarii.^[6]

Like capră, the word names wooden supports: a sawhorse for cutting wood, a trestle for a bench or a builders' scaffold, the ridge or the rafters of a peasant roof.^[2][4][13] Tiktin records it for the top sheaf of a stack, laid over the others to protect them.^[9] Set phrases contrast it with the horse: a ajunge din cal măgar “to come down in the world” and a nu fi nici cal, nici măgar “to be neither one thing nor the other”.^[3][5]

Timeline

• 1620 – the first record, in Moxa's chronicle.^[9]
• 1646 – măgariul in Vasile Lupu's law code.^[2][3]
• 1649 – măgarii in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – măgari in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 12:16).^[9][12]
• early 18th century – used of people treated “like donkeys”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. donkey, ass: the domestic animal of the horse family with long ears, used to carry loads; synonym asin.^[5][3][1]
2. (derogatory) A stupid, stubborn or insolent person.^[5][3][1]
3. (regional) A sawhorse or a trestle; the rafters or the ridge of a peasant house.^[2][4]

Word family

• măgăriță
• măgărar
• măgăresc
• măgărește
• măgări
• măgărie
• măgăraș
• măgărel
• măgăruș

Related words

• Megleno-Romanian măgar
• Albanian magar

Usage notes

The female is măgăriță.^[1][9] A fi măgarul cuiva means to do someone's tiring and humiliating chores, and măgar sălbatic is the wild ass.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. măgar
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, 1448
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. măgar
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 626
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 784
7. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 317
8. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ 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. măgar
10. ^ a b Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 178
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
12. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)
13. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 375