merinde

Forms

merinde f pl (plural only)^[1] MDA2 gives the regional variants merindă and merindine and, besides the plural merinzi, the regional plurals merinduri and merinzuri.^[2] In Transylvania and northern Moldavia the word is a feminine singular: Scriban quotes „purtând merindea lui săracă” “carrying his poor provisions”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin merenda (“light afternoon meal”), a word that originally named a light meal given to labourers in the afternoon.^{[4][5][2][6][1][7]} The Latin noun is the gerundive of mereō (“to earn, deserve”), so it meant at first “things one has earned”.^[7][8][9]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian mirindi, Megleno-Romanian mirindi and Istro-Romanian merinde.^{[5][10][11][12][13]} Its Romance cognates include Italian merenda, Friulian mirinde, Dalmatian marianda, Occitan merenda, Old French marende, Spanish merienda and Portuguese merenda.^{[5][14][8][1]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1652, in the law code Îndreptarea legii, where the word already means food for a journey.^[4] MDA2's first record is a sermon of Antim Ivireanul (1709–1716), who urges his listeners to take five things with them, to serve as „o merinde la vreme de primejdie” “provisions in time of danger”.^[2][15]

Semantic evolution

Latin merenda was an afternoon snack;^[16][15][2] Romanian widened it to any food, usually cold, that one takes along on a journey or to work, and then to food in general.^[16][15][2] The sister branches kept more of the Latin sense: Aromanian mirindi is both the time between about four and five in the afternoon and the snack eaten then, Megleno-Romanian mirindi the afternoon snack, and Istro-Romanian merinde “lunch”.^[10][11][13] Italian merenda kept the afternoon snack too, recorded from Boccaccio (1348–1353).^[9]

A regional sense in Transylvania is the food and kitchen utensils that a bride brings to her husband's house as part of her dowry.^[2] As a pastoral word the Romanian merinde spread north along the Carpathians, into Ukrainian and as Polish mierynda (dialectal), Slovak merinda and Hungarian meringya.^[17][18][3]

Timeline

• 1652 – merinde, with the plurals merinde and merinzi, in Îndreptarea legii.^[4]
• 1709–1716 – „o merinde la vreme de primejdie” in Antim Ivireanul's sermons, MDA2's first record.^[2][15]
• 1825 – merende “provisions for the road”, glossed Latin viaticum, in the Lexicon de la Buda, whose authors derive it from Latin merenda.^[19]
• 1865 – merinde “food for the road” in Pisone's dictionary.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. provisions, usually cold food, that someone takes along when setting out on a journey or going to work: Și-a pus merindea în traistă și a pornit la câmp.^[6][2][1]
2. (by extension) Food in general, victuals.^[6][2]
3. (regional, Transylvania) The food and kitchen utensils that a bride brings into her husband's house as part of her dowry.^[2]

Related words

• Aromanian mirindi
• Latin merenda

Usage notes

In the standard language the word is mostly used in the plural, merinde, but in Transylvania and northern Moldavia it is a feminine singular, with the articled form merindea.^[3][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1491
3. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 799
4. ^ 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. merinde
5. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 91
6. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 642
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 658
11. ^ a b Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 191
12. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 124
13. ^ a b Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. merinde
16. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 394
17. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. merinde
18. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica
19. ^ 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. 386
20. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 222
21. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 60