mascul

Forms

mascul m or n (feminine singular masculă, masculine plural masculi, feminine/neuter plural mascule)^[1] It is also stressed on the first syllable, máscul.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin masculus (“male”), with Italian masculo as a second model.^[2][4][5][6] Marcu & Maneca and Scriban name only the Latin word, and Wiktionary takes it from Italian, itself borrowed from Latin.^[3][7][1] The Latin adjective is formed on mās (“male”) with the diminutive suffix -culus.^[8][1]

The same Latin word was inherited as mascur “castrated pig”, whose Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian forms still mean “male”;^[9][10][1] This word is its learned doublet, taken in the 19th century.^[9][10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record that MDA2 and the DLR cite is in Ion Heliade-Rădulescu's works: „Ieșiți pereche toate [animalele] în masculi și în femini” “come out in pairs, all [the animals], males and females”.^[2][4] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms lists it in 1848, defining it as “of the male sex, not a woman”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word entered as a term of natural history, the male animal as opposed to the female, femelă.^[2][7] The botanical adjective, of flowers and their parts that bear the fertilizing elements, appears in the same century in Grecescu's flora.^[2] In the 20th century it was applied to men too, often with a pejorative note: a virile man, the vanity of the male.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1848 – listed by Negulici, the first dated record.^[11]
• 1859 – masculul și femela “the male and the female” in the journal Isis.^[2]
• 20th century – used of men, often pejoratively, by Brăescu and Cezar Petrescu.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A male: an individual of the male sex, as opposed to the femelă.^[5][4][1]
2. (often pejorative) A virile man: un mascul fudul “a vain he-man”.^[5][2]

Adjective

1. Of flowers and their parts: staminate, bearing the fertilizing elements; masculin.^[5][4][1]

Related words

• mascur
• masculin
• femelă

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mascul
3. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. mascul
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1439
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 622
6. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. mascul
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 779
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ 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. mascur
10. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 126
11. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. 253