miere

Forms

miere f (uncountable)^[1] Old texts often spell it miiare: „Mîncarea lui era lăcuste și miiare sălbatecă” “his food was locusts and wild honey” (New Testament of 1648).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *melem, a form of Latin mel (“honey”) with a final /-e/ and a change of gender.^[3][1] Ciorănescu, following Pușcariu, the REW and Candrea–Densusianu, explains the Vulgar Latin form by analogy with fel (“gall”) and sal (“salt”);^[4][5] Tiktin starts from mĕle.^[3][4][5] MDA2, DEX and the DLR take it directly from the Latin noun.^[6][7][2] The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *mel-it (“honey”), whose descendants include Ancient Greek μέλι (méli) and Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌻𐌹𐌸 (miliþ).^[8][1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian njari, Megleno-Romanian m'ari and Istro-Romanian mľåre.^[3][9][1] Ciorănescu compares Albanian mjal, and among the Romance languages Italian miele, Catalan mel, Portuguese mel and Spanish miel.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, which has miiare in „den piatră miiare sătură-i” “he satisfied them with honey out of the rock”.^[2][6] The same psalter has the articled form mierea in Psalm 118.^[10] The sense was “honey” from the start.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the substance made by bees the word passed to the nectar of flowers and, figuratively, to sweet and pleasant speech.^[7][11] Many popular phrases use it: a unge pe cineva la inimă cu miere “to say pleasant things to someone”, a înota în miere “to be very rich” and a da de miere “to have unexpected luck”.^[6][4] Luna de miere “honeymoon” is recorded by Costinescu in 1870 as the equivalent of French lune de miel.^[12]

The compound mierea-ursului names a plant, lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis).^[7][4]

Timeline

• early 16th century – miiare and mierea in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[2][10]
• 1588 – Jumatate de miere strede, a dated record quoted by the DLR.^[2]
• 1648 – miiare sălbatecă “wild honey” in the New Testament.^[2]
• 1688 – miiare in the Bucharest Bible: „Pământul ce curge lapte și miiare”.^[4]
• 1870 – luna de miere “honeymoon” in Costinescu's dictionary.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. honey: the sweet, thick, yellowish substance that bees make from the nectar of flowers: miere de salcâm “acacia honey”.^[7][6][1]
2. The nectar of flowers.^[7][13]
3. (figurative) Sweet, flattering words.^[11]

Word family

• mieriu
• mieros

Related words

• Latin mel
• Aromanian njari

Usage notes

Luna de miere is the first month of married life, and de miere after a noun means “very kind, generous”.^[7] The noun has no plural in the standard language; the genitive-dative is mierii.^[6][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. miere
3. ^ 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. miere
4. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. miere
5. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 92
6. ^ 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, 8
7. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 652
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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, 131
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 118:102
11. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 806
12. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 95
13. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. miere