meriză

Forms

meriză f (plural merize)^[1] The regional variants are mereaz, mereaze, merez, mereze and mirez.^[2][3] Teodorescu's folk poems have mereaz: „La mereaz întoarce-le” “turn them back to the resting place”.^[3] Beniuc has mirez: „Satul ... culcat ca o cireadă de vaci în mirez” “the village lying like a herd of cows at their midday resting place”.^[3]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Romanian meriza (“to rest in the shade (of cattle)”), according to DLR, MDA2 and Ștef.^[3][2][4] Candrea and Densusianu took it straight from Latin merīdiēs (“midday”), with a change of declension, and the REW lists the Transylvanian form mereze under the same Latin word;^[5][6][1] Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[5][6][1]

South of the Danube the counterpart is Aromanian amiridz, a shaded place where sheep rest in the hot hours;^[7][1] Papahagi derives it from the Latin noun, Wiktionary from the Aromanian verb.^[7][1] Albanian mriz “midday rest of livestock” shows the same shift of meaning;^[8][1] DPEWA takes it, too, from the Latin noun.^[8][1] Candrea and Densusianu compare Italian meriggio and Friulian mirie.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is Vasile Vaida's material on the dialect of Sălaj, printed in the newspaper Tribuna of Sibiu in 1890, for a shaded place where cattle rest in summer.^[2] Candrea and Densusianu cite the same issue of Tribuna and Teodorescu's folk poems.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word names the shaded spot in the fields where cattle rest at midday in summer, and in some villages the place where they spend the night.^[3][2] It belongs to Transylvania, Banat and Maramureș, with regional synonyms such as staniște, bătătură, bouriște and zăcătură.^[3] In Maramureș Papahagi recorded it as the resting place of sheep or cattle at midday.^[9]

Timeline

• 1890 – Vaida's Sălaj dialect material in Tribuna, MDA2's first record.^[2]
• 1925 – recorded in Maramureș by Papahagi.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional, Transylvania, Banat, Maramureș) A place, usually in the shade, where cattle rest in the fields at midday in summer, or at night.^[3][2][1]

Word family

• merizuș
• meriziș

Related words

• meriza
• Aromanian amiridz

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 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 d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. meriză
4. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. meriză
5. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 94
8. ^ a b Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
9. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica