miazăzi

Forms

miazăzi f (uncountable)^[1] Old texts also have amiazăzi, with the dative amiázăzul in Dosoftei; the genitive was miezii zi “of the south”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mediam diem (“midday”), with media and diēs (“day”).^[1][4][5][3] Ciorănescu lists it among the compounds of miez, from medius.^[6]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian njadzã-dzuã.^[1][7][8] The Romance languages have the same compound: French midi, Italian mezzodì, Occitan mieidia, Catalan migdia, Spanish mediodía and Portuguese meio-dia.^[1][7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and DLR first find it in a text of 1648 printed in Gaster's chrestomathy, in the phrase „părțile despre miazănoapte și despre miazăzi” “the parts towards the north and towards the south”.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was “midday”, the middle of the day; in that sense the word gave way to amiază, and it was kept for the south.^[6] By the 19th century the time sense was left to the dictionaries: DLR finds “noon” only in the Lexicon of Buda, Polizu and Costinescu.^[3] The direction sense spread to the southern lands and their peoples: in Ispirescu's tale the emperor gathers east and west, south and north to a feast.^[3][10] A regional sense “midday meal” is mapped by the Romanian linguistic atlas in northern Transylvania.^[3][4] Like miazănoapte, the word is now archaic or poetic, replaced by sud.^[1]

An old derivative, miazăzian “meridian”, is recorded in a geography text.^[3]

Timeline

• 1648 – “south”, in a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy, the first record.^[4][3]
• c. 1660–1670 – in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon Lex.St., beside a Slavonic word for noon.^[11][3]
• 1688 – eleven times in the Bucharest Bible.^[12][2]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda gives “midday” and “south”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The south, the cardinal point opposite the north; by extension the southern part of the globe, a continent or a town.^[5][4][1]
2. The peoples or lands of the south.^[5][10]
3. (regional) The midday meal.^[4][3]
4. (obsolete) noon, midday.^[4][3]

Related words

• miazănoapte
• amiază
• miez
• zi
• Aromanian njadzã-dzuã

Usage notes

The locution de miazăzi means “southern”.^[10][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. miez
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. miazăzi
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 648
6. ^ 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. miez
7. ^ a b Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 132
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 745
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. miazăzi
10. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 70
11. ^ 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. miazăzi
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Joshua 17:9
13. ^ 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. 383