mișto

Forms

mișto m or f or n (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Romani mišto (“good”), a slang word.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu cites Graur and Juilland for it and compares mištó (“good”) in the Romani of Spain.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the second volume of the Iași Buletinul Institutului de filologie română, a journal whose first volume appeared in 1934: „Casă… mișto” “a fine house”.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective is invariable and often has the force of a superlative, “very good, very nice”.^[3][2] Used as a noun it gave the phrases a lua la mișto and a lua peste mișto “to make fun of someone”, rarely also “to take someone to task”.^[3][5]

Timeline

• 1930s – the first record, in the Buletinul Institutului de filologie română.^[3][5]
• 1998 – in DEX, labelled slang.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (slang) Very good, very nice; cool, great.^[2][1]

Noun

1. (slang, in a lua la mișto) mockery: to make fun of someone.^[2][3]

Usage notes

The adjective does not inflect: o casă mișto, niște haine mișto.^[2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 661
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mișto
4. ^ a b 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. mișto
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 28
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 640