mic

Forms

mic m or n (feminine singular mică, plural mici)^[1] Besides the usual plural mici, MDA2 records a rare feminine plural mice.^[2] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written мик.^[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *miccus (“small”), a form the dictionaries reconstruct rather than find in texts.^[2][3][4][5] Ciorănescu thinks the word is of expressive origin, but older than Romanian, and compares pic and Latin mīca (“crumb, grain”).^[5]

Where the Latin form came from is disputed.^[5] Densusianu, Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu, the REW, Pascu and Rohlfs derive it from Greek, from Ancient Greek μικκός (mikkós, “small”), the Doric and Boeotian variant of μικρός (mikrós).^[5][6][7] Diez, Körting and Gougenheim start from the Latin noun instead, and so did Cihac and Byhan.^[5][8][9] Tiktin leaves the choice between the Greek and the Latin word open, and Ciorănescu thinks it more likely that all these words go back to the same expressive source.^[10][5] Wiktionary follows the Greek explanation.^[1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian njic, Megleno-Romanian mic and Istro-Romanian mic.^[5][11][12] Other Romance relatives are Italian miccino (“a tiny amount”) and Sicilian nicu (“small”), whose /n-/ the REW calls unexplained.^[5][10][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest records are personal names: Micus in a Latin charter from Hungary of 1202 and Micou in a Transylvanian one of 1216.^[14] Tiktin dates his first record to about 1222.^[10] In Romanian texts the plural forms mici and micii appear in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, from the early 16th century.^[15] MDA2 takes its first record from the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in Acts 26:22: „Mărturisescu micilor și mariloru” “I bear witness to small and great”.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

The adjective first measured size and quantity; in older texts it could also mean “little, short” of time, as in Dosoftei's „Bogdan Vodă domni mică vreme” “Prince Bogdan reigned a short time”.^[5] From size it passed to age (“young”, and as a noun “little child”) and to rank and worth (“unimportant”, “petty”).^[3][5] In Megleno-Romanian the noun mic also means “child”.^[16]

In kinship terms it marks the younger or lesser side: socru mic is the bride's father, and Tiktin cites unchi mic and lele mică from the Pravila de la Govora for a parent's cousins.^[3][10] Used as a noun it names the Devil (micuțul, compare Michiduță), a 20-lei coin in slang, and, in familiar Bucharest usage, the skinless grilled sausages also called mititei.^[10][5] Tiktin preferred mititel for the dish.^[10] Ciorănescu records that Modern Greek borrowed the diminutive micuț as Modern Greek μικούτσο (mikoútso).^[5]

Timeline

• 1202 – Micus, a personal name in a Latin charter from Hungary.^[14]
• 1216 – Micou, a personal name in a Transylvanian charter.^[14]
• about 1222 – Tiktin's first record.^[10]
• 1435 – Mic as a personal name in Moldavia.^[14]
• early 16th century – mici and micii in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[15]
• c. 1563–1583 – micilor “to the small” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2][10]
• 1649 – mic in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[17]
• 1825 – micu in the Lexicon de la Buda, with Latin parvus, exiguus.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. small, little: below the usual size, literă mică “lower-case letter”, degetul mic “the little finger”.^[3][2]
2. Few in number; limited: un grup mic de turiști.^[3]
3. (of a sound or voice) faint, weak, low.^[3]
4. (of a day or night) short.^[3][10]
5. Young, of tender age, cel mai mic “the youngest”, de mic “since childhood”.^[3][10]
6. Of little value or importance: o sumă mică.^[3]
7. (figurative, of people) petty, mean-spirited, mic la minte “narrow-minded”.^[3]
8. Lower in a hierarchy, socru mic “the bride's father”, soacră mică “the bride's mother”.^[3]

Noun

1. (chiefly in the plural mici) a skinless sausage of minced, spiced meat grilled over coals; the same as mititel.^{[3][19][5][1]}
2. A little boy, a child; in the plural cei mici “the children”.^[3][1]

Word family

• micșor
• micșora
• micșorime
• micușor
• micuțel
• mititel
• mititică
• micime
• Michiduță
• micuț

Related words

• pic
• mică
• Aromanian njic
• Vulgar Latin *miccus

Usage notes

Mic și mare or cu mic, cu mare means “everyone, young and old”.^[3][10] A avea pe cineva la degetul mic is “to have someone wrapped round one's little finger”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 648
4. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mic
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. mic
6. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 92
7. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 162
9. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 276
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mic
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 796
12. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula, p. s.v. mic
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5559
14. ^ a b c d Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. mic
15. ^ 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 113:22
16. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. mic
17. ^ 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. mic
18. ^ 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. 391
19. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 70