mărgea

Forms

mărgea f (plural mărgele)^[1] The variant mărgică, with a different suffix, is common in the east; the regional mărgeauă is also found.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin margella (“coral, pearl”), a word known only from a Greek–Latin glossary, where it renders Ancient Greek κοράλλιον (korállion, “red coral”).^{[5][2][6][7][8]} MDA2 and DLR call it Medieval Latin.^[3][9] Cihac derived the word from Ancient Greek μαργέλλιον (margéllion) and Rohlfs from μάργαρον (márgaron), which Ciorănescu finds less likely.^[5]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian mãrdzeauã and Megleno-Romanian mărdzeauă.^[5][6][1] The REW lists no other Romance descendant.^[8] mărgică is the same word with the diminutive suffix -ică.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1531, in a Slavonic-language document of the Romanian lands.^[10] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 has the word.^[11] MDA2's first record is a document of 1747 about a purchase at the fair of Aiud, eight oka of bone beads.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

A mărgea is a small pierced bead of glass, stone or bone, strung or sewn on clothes as an ornament, and in the plural a string of beads.^[2][3] Scriban infers from the folk simile dinți ca mărgelele “teeth like beads” that the word first meant white beads.^[4] The Lexicon of Buda (1825) glosses it with Latin margarita “pearl”.^[12]

By resemblance it names the red wattles on a turkey's head and neck, frogspawn in some regions, and several plants: mărgică the melic grass (Melica), mărgea in Transylvania a clematis.^[2][3][13] Popular belief knew a mărgea made by snakes from their spittle.^[3] In Dobrogea the women of the bride's family meet on the Saturday before the wedding la mărgele “at the beads” to string her necklace.^[10][3]

Timeline

• 1531 – the first record, in a Slavonic-language document.^[10]
• 1649 – mărgea in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1747 – mărgele de os “bone beads” bought at the Aiud fair.^[3][9]
• 1801 – margéa in Klein's dictionary.^[14]
• 1825 – mărgea “pearl” in the Lexicon of Buda.^[12]
• 1886 – mărgele de sticlă “glass beads” in Barcianu's dictionary.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bead: a small pierced ball of glass, stone and the like, used as an ornament; in the plural, a string of beads.^[2][1]
2. (in the plural) The wattles on the head and neck of a turkey.^[2][1]
3. (in the form mărgică) Melic grass (Melica), grasses with small flowers at the tip of the spikelets.^[2]

Word family

• mărgică
• mărgelat
• mărgelare
• mărgelușă

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. 628
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, 1456
4. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 788
5. ^ a b c 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. mărgea
6. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 89
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5353
9. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mărgea
10. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mărgea
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. mărgea
12. ^ a b 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. 377
13. ^ Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 169
14. ^ 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. 396
15. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 370