meriza

Forms

meriza (third-person singular present merizează or meriză, past participle merizat); first conjugation.^[1][2] A variant mereza is recorded in Transylvanian dialect material.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin merīdiō (“to take a midday rest, a siesta”).^{[2][3][1][4][5]} The Latin verb is formed on merīdiēs (“midday, noon”).^[6][7]

South of the Danube the verb is Aromanian amiridz, used of sheep resting in the shade during the hot hours, and Megleno-Romanian mirindzari.^[8][5] Outside Romanian the Latin verb survives in Italian meriggiare, in Sardinian meryare of Logudoro and in Albanian mërzej, which DPEWA also takes from Latin.^{[5][9][10][1]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The dictionaries record the verb only from the 20th century, in the Transylvanian and Maramureș dialects.^[2][3] MDA2's first record is Sextil Pușcariu's Limba română (1940), which lists meriza among the pastoral words that Romanian herdsmen carried along the Polish Carpathians, with merinde and rumega; the verb is said of cattle resting in the shade in summer.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant a person's midday nap; in Romanian, as in Aromanian, it is said only of livestock resting in the shade in the heat of the day.^[6][3][8] In Maramureș it is also used of the herdsman, who drives the cattle into the shade to rest, and a place called Meriza near Odești keeps the word.^[4][11] Ștef notes that the Romanian word passed into the neighbouring Slavic dialects.^[11]

Timeline

• 1940 – meriza in Pușcariu's Limba română, MDA2's first record.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, regional, Transylvania and Maramureș, of cattle) To rest in the shade during the summer heat: Vacile merizează sub fagi.^{[3][2][12][1]}
2. (transitive, Maramureș) To drive cattle into the shade so that they can rest at midday.^[4][11]

Word family

• meriză

Related words

• Aromanian amiridz
• Latin merīdiēs

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. meriza
4. ^ a b c Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. meriza
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 94
9. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
11. ^ a b c Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica
12. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. meriza