mișel

Forms

mișel m or n (feminine singular mișea, masculine plural mișeli, feminine/neuter plural mișele)^[1] Old texts have a feminine mișa: „Desparte-se bărbatul de muiere de va fi mișa sau gubavă” “a man may part from his wife if she is a leper or scabby”, in the Îndreptarea legii.^[2] Tiktin also records the old feminine mișală in a manuscript of 1714, and the old texts often write the masculine mișăl.^[2] Scriban gives the familiar feminines mișarcă and mișaucă beside mișea.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin misellus (“poor, wretched”), the diminutive of miser (“wretched”).^{[4][5][6][1][3]} The Latin adjective meant “poor, pitiable” in Cicero's letters and Catullus.^[7][8] Candrea and Densusianu take Latin ⟨e⟩ to have become ⟨i⟩ by dissimilation, through an older ⟨*meșel⟩.^[9]

The Romance cognates are Italian misello, Occitan mesel, Old French mesel (“leper”), Catalan mesell and Old Spanish mesillo.^[4][3] Because Old French, Occitan and Catalan also use the word for a leper, Candrea and Densusianu hold that the sense “leprous” already existed in Vulgar Latin.^[9] Ciorănescu compares the sense change with that of Spanish miserable.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where the plural and articled forms stand for the poor and needy of the psalms (Psalm 9:31, 10:5).^[10] MDA2 dates its first record to a text of before 1550 printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni;^[5][2] Tiktin's earliest is the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5][2] In Coresi's Gospel book the rich young man is told „Du-te și vinde avuția ta și dă mișăilor” “go and sell your wealth and give to the poor” (Matthew 19:21).^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the word meant “poor, wretched, pitiable”, and as a noun “a poor man, a beggar”; a document of Iași of 1627 uses it of the peasants.^[2][11] A curse formula mișel de… “woe to…” is found in the old texts.^[2][3] Another old sense was “leprous”, found in Coresi's homilies and the old law books.^[9][2] It also named a man of the lowest class, and so a commoner or subject.^[5][6]

In the modern language the word turned pejorative: “vile, base” and “cowardly”.^[12][4] Tiktin and Șăineanu quote Bălcescu: „cel ce fuge dinaintea dușmanului este mișel” “he who flees before the enemy is a coward”.^[2][12] The old “poor” sense lives on in regional speech, and in Banat and Oltenia the word names a small, stunted maize cob with few grains.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – mișel and its plural forms in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[10]
• before 1550 – mișelu “poor man” in a text of Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.^[5][11]
• 1551–1558 – mișeilor in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[13]
• 1627 – mișeii of the peasants in a document of Iași.^[2]
• c. 1660–1670 – mișel glossing Slavonic убогъ “poor” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – mișei in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]
• 1825 – mișel “wretched, unhappy” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Worthless, vile, base; cowardly.^[6][1]
2. (obsolete) Of humble condition, common.^[6]
3. (obsolete, regional) poor, needy; pitiable.^[6][5]
4. (obsolete, regional) Weak, sick, infirm; by extension lacking energy.^[6][5]
5. (Banat, Oltenia) Of a maize cob: small and stunted, with few small grains.^[5]

Noun

1. A scoundrel, a villain; a coward.^[6][1]
2. (obsolete) A poor man; a beggar.^[5][11]
3. (obsolete) A leper.^[5][2]

Word family

• mișeli
• mișelame
• mișelătate
• mișelesc
• mișelește
• mișelie
• mișelnic
• mișelos

Related words

• meserie
• mizerie
• mizerabil
• Latin misellus

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 Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mișél
3. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 816
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. mișel
5. ^ 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. 2, 27
6. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 661
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. mișel
10. ^ a b 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 9:31
11. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mișel
12. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 402
13. ^ 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 111:8
14. ^ 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. mișel
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 1 Cor 15:19
16. ^ 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. 395