mește

Forms

mește (first-person singular present mesc, simple past mescui, past participle mescut); third conjugation.^[2][1] DLR and MDA2 record the variants mesca and mesti;^[3][2] Cantemir uses the participle mestit: „nefericirea și pustietatea carea armele turcești i-au mestit” “the misfortune and desolation that the Turkish arms had poured out for it”.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin misceō (“to mix”).^{[4][5][2][3][1]} The Romanian verb, like Italian mescere, has the stress on the root, so Candrea and Densusianu, DELI and Nocentini start from an infinitive of the third conjugation in Late Latin, beside the classical one of the second.^[6][7][8]

South of the Danube it is Aromanian mescu, “to offer a drink, to treat; to give a present”.^[4][9][10] The sense “to pour a drink” is shared with the Italian verb and with Occitan meiser, so Ungureanu dates the specialisation to Common Romance; Spanish mecer “to rock” and Portuguese mexer “to stir” go back to the same verb.^[11][6][8] The Latin verb is from Proto-Indo-European *miḱ-sḱé-, an inchoative of the root “to mix”.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a glossary of about 1600 printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.^[5] MDA2 dates the word from the Bucharest Bible of 1688, where Pharaoh's butler will again hand him the cup „după cum erai mescând” “as you used to pour” (Genesis 40:13).^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The Latin “to mix” became in Romanian “to prepare a drink, to pour it into a cup, to serve it”, and with a person as object “to give someone a drink”.^[3][2] Old texts also used it for drawing water or another liquid, often figuratively: those who believe „mescu apa cunoașterii dumnezăiești” “draw the water of divine knowledge”.^[3][13] The sense “to mix” is recorded only in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon and Laurian & Massim, and DLR marks it as suspect.^[3] Ciorănescu dates the verb to the 17th and 18th centuries; in Transylvania Viciu's glossary records it in a folk song: „Vin pe masă cin-le meșce?” “who pours the wine on the table for them?”.^[4][3] Aromanian kept the verb alive and gave it the senses “to treat a guest” and “to give a present”.^[9][5]

Timeline

• c. 1600 – mește in a glossary printed by Hasdeu.^[5]
• 1649 – mescătoriu de vin “cupbearer” in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• c. 1660 – mesc in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• c. 1670 – mescu apa “they draw the water”, figurative.^[3]
• 1688 – mescând “pouring” in the Bucharest Bible, MDA2's first record.^[2][3]
• 1746 – „Te așteaptă paharul morții să ți să mească” “the cup of death waits to be poured for you”.^[3][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, obsolete and regional) To pour a drink into a cup, to prepare and serve it: Paharnicul meștea vinul domnului.^[3][2][4][1]
2. (transitive, obsolete and regional) To give or offer someone a drink.^[2][3]
3. (transitive, obsolete) To draw a liquid, such as water.^[2][3][16]
4. (transitive, rare, doubtful) To mix.^[2][3]

Word family

• mescător

Related words

• mișca
• Aromanian mescu

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1494
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mește
4. ^ a b c d 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. mește
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mește
6. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
7. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 679
10. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 115
11. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 341
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 184
14. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mescător
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. mesc
16. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. mește