mărăcine

Forms

mărăcine m (plural mărăcini)^[1] Variants are mărăcin and mărăcină;^[2][3][4] Moldavia also has the feminine mărăciune, as in Negruzzi: „curăță de mărăciuni țarina sa” “clears his field of thorns”.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[5][1] DEX and MDA2 take it as inherited from Latin marrūcīna (“a kind of thorny shrub”), which Candrea and Densusianu find in a Latin glossary miswritten ⟨marrugina⟩.^[2][6][7] Most authors connect it with marra (“a kind of hoe for weeding”), through a form *marrūcīna (Candrea and Densusianu, Battisti) or *marracīna (Pușcariu); Pușcariu wrote ⟨*marricina⟩.^[5][8][1] The thorny shrub called Italian marruca is traced by Nocentini to an Osco-Umbrian word.^[9][4] Ciorănescu finds the derivation hard: Candrea and Densusianu explain the ⟨ă⟩ by crossing with mătăcină, and Brüch started from marrubium.^[5]

Ciorănescu himself prefers malitia (“badness”), with the same sense development as Spanish maleza (“undergrowth”) and the suffix of the variant mărăciune; he compares Aromanian marițire (“to grow worse”).^[5][10] He rejects a Greek ⟨*myricina⟩ (Pascu) and a pre-Indo-European origin, and holds that the Aromanian sounds prove a Latin source.^[5] The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian mãrãtsini and Megleno-Romanian mărțin.^[5][11] Wiktionary compares Albanian mërqinje with the same meaning, and Tiktin compares Albanian murriz (“blackthorn”).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the plural mărăcini in Coresi's Psalter of 1570, at Psalm 117:12.^[12] MDA2 and DLR cite the verse from Coresi's edition of 1577, where the enemies blaze up „ca focul în mărăcini” “like fire among thorns”.^[6][13] Coresi also uses the plural figuratively, for the thorns of avarice.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The word names several thorny shrubs: the blackthorn in Dobrogea (mărăcine negru), the hawthorn in Transylvania (mărăcin alb), the dog rose in one Făgăraș village, and in general any plant with thorns, or a single thorn.^[13][6] Tiktin and Șăineanu give blackthorn and hawthorn as its main senses.^[4][14] The plural also means a thicket of such shrubs, and compounds name other plants, such as mărăcine-de-mure for the bramble.^[6][2]

The phrase a sta (ca) pe mărăcini “to be on thorns” means to be impatient, and a trăi ca pe mărăcini to live badly; both are already in Costinescu's dictionary of 1870, with a călca pe mărăcini “to walk slowly”.^[2][15] The old texts use the plural for the vices that must be rooted out of the soul.^[13] The word is also a surname, recorded as Mărăcin in 1619.^[4][1]

Timeline

• 1570 – mărăcini in Coresi's Psalter (Ps 117:12).^[12]
• 1619 – the personal name Mărăcin.^[4]
• 1649 – mărăcin in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[16]
• 1688 – „mărăcini și ciulini va răsări ție” “thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee” in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 3:18).^[4][17]
• 1825 – mărăcine and mărăciune “hawthorn” in the Lexicon of Buda.^[18]
• 1870 – a sta pe mărăcini “to be impatient” in Costinescu's dictionary.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bramble or briar: a general name for plants whose stem is covered with thorns; also their prickly fruit.^[2][1]
2. A thorn or prickle of such a plant.^[2][6]
3. (regional) The blackthorn (Prunus spinosa); in Transylvania, the hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna).^[6][4]
4. (mostly in the plural) A thicket of thorny shrubs.^[2]

Word family

• mărăcinar
• mărăciniș
• mărăcinos

Related words

• Aromanian mãrãtsini

Usage notes

A sta (ca) pe mărăcini means to be impatient, unable to keep still, and a trăi ca pe mărăcini to live badly.^[2][19] Dictionaries list mărăcine as a masculine noun, plural mărăcini; the feminine variant mărăcină is a separate headword.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 628
3. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 38
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mărăcine
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. mărăcine
6. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1454
7. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. mărăcine
8. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 88
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Wikționar (Romanian Wiktionary), ro.wiktionary.org
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 629
12. ^ 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 117:12
13. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mărăcine
14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 383
15. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 70
16. ^ 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. mărăcin
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gn 3:18
18. ^ 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. 376
19. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. mărăcine