mascur

Forms

mascur m (plural mascuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin masculus (“male”);^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Tiktin starts from porcus masculus (“male pig”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Ciorănescu cites Pușcariu (no. 1044), Candrea–Densusianu (no. 1049) and the REW.^[2][7][8] The Latin word is a diminutive of mās (“male”).^[9][1]

The word survives south of the Danube with the older sense “male, manly”: Aromanian mascur and Megleno-Romanian mascur.^[2][10][7] Șăineanu notes that the meaning was narrowed in Daco-Romanian.^[11] Ciorănescu compares Albanian maškul, after G. Meyer and Philippide, and its Romance cognates Italian maschio, Occitan mascle, Old French mascle (which became French mâle) and Spanish macho.^[2] The REW adds Portuguese macho and dialect words for the boar in northern Italy and France.^[8] The learned mascul, taken from the same Latin word in the 19th century, is its doublet.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Slavonic–Romanian document of 1507.^[6] In Romanian texts it first appears in Coresi's psalter of 1570, in Psalm 79:14, where „mascur de luncă” “the boar of the meadow” devours the vine, and in the psalters that follow.^[12][6] MDA2 gives the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578) as its first record.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the word meant a male pig, in contrast to scroafă “sow”, and mascur de luncă or mascur sălbatic was the wild boar.^[5][4] The 1688 Bible names the pig among the unclean animals with it: „Și mascurul... necuratu e acesta voao” “and the swine... is unclean to you”.^[5][13] The usual sense became the castrated hog fattened for meat;^[6][5] Neculce lists a tithe on beehives and mascuri, and Drăghici describes hogs fattened on the leavings of the distillery.^[6][5] More rarely it is an uncastrated boar.^[5][4]

Regionally the word names a pig of either sex from six months to three or four years old, a fat young pig, pork, and particular breeds of pig.^[4] In Maramureș it is a male pig.^[14]

Timeline

• 1507 – a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[6]
• 1570 – mascur de luncă “wild boar” in Coresi's psalter, Psalm 79:14.^[12]
• c. 1573–1578 – the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4][12]
• 1645 – mascuri in the Romanian translation of Herodotus.^[5]
• c. 1660–1670 – mascur glossing Slavonic words for the boar in the Lexicon Stamatie.^[15]
• 1688 – mascurul in the Bucharest Bible, Deuteronomy 14:8.^[13]
• 1801 – máscur “castrated pig” in Klein's dictionary.^[16]
• 1825 – mascuru or mascure in the Lexicon de la Buda, with the diminutives măscuraș and măscurenciu.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional, dated) a castrated male pig, a barrow or hog.^{[3][4][18][1]}
2. (rarer) an uncastrated male pig, a boar; see vier.^[4][5]
3. (regional) a pig in general.^[4][19]

Word family

• măscuroaie

Related words

• mascul
• Aromanian mascur
• Latin masculus

Usage notes

The word is stressed máscur, also mascúr.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. mascur
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 622
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mascur
6. ^ 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. mascur
7. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5392
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. masculus
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 184
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 387
12. ^ a b c 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 79:14
13. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Deut 14:8
14. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. mascúr
15. ^ 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. mascur
16. ^ 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
17. ^ 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. 380
18. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. mascur
19. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 25