mirosi

Forms

mirosi (third-person singular present miroase, past participle mirosit, third-person subjunctive miroasă), 4th conjugation^[1] The old present was mirosesc: „Nări au și nu mirosesc” “they have nostrils and do not smell” (a psalter of 1651).^[2][3] Moldavian and popular speech has amirosi: „de-i amirosa urma pe unde călca” “so that one could smell her track wherever she stepped”.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic миросати (mirosati), according to DEX, MDA2 and the DLR.^[5][3][2] The Slavonic verb meant “to anoint with myrrh” and was formed on the aorist stem of the Greek verb for “to anoint with myrrh”.^[6] Ciorănescu, after Graur and Pușcariu, holds that the Romanian verb comes directly from Modern Greek μυρώνω (myróno), aorist εμύρωσα (emýrosa, “to perfume”), and finds the Slavic derivation that Tiktin and Candrea gave unnecessary; he compares the Old Serbian and Bulgarian verbs.^[7] Wiktionary leaves both possibilities open.^[1] Kriaras records the medieval Greek verb in the sense “to anoint with myrrh”, continuing the ancient Ancient Greek μυρόω (myróō).^[8] Ciorănescu compares mir “chrism”.^[7]

South of the Danube the word survives as Megleno-Romanian miruses, which Capidan took from Middle Bulgarian.^[9][7] The Slavonic verb also passed into Serbo-Croatian, Albanian and Aromanian.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581–1582 (Exodus 30:38).^[4] A Coresi print has the verb with an internal object, “to smell a smell” from flowers, and a psalter of 1651, which MDA2 gives as the first record, has the sense “to perceive by smell”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The Greek and Slavonic verbs were about anointing with fragrant oil; in Romanian the word came to cover both perceiving a smell and giving one off.^[6][5] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has both: idols that have noses and will not smell, and “I will not smell the savour of your sacrifices”.^[4] Of animals it means to sniff, to scent.^[5][2] Figurative senses grew from that: to sense or suspect something, and miroase a… “it smells of…, it bodes…”.^[5][3] Popular phrases include nici nu pute, nici nu miroase “neither good nor bad”, of someone indifferent, and a mirosi a pământ “to be near death”.^[3][4] Ciorănescu notes that, together with amirosi, it is the word in general use for smelling across the dialects.^[7]

Timeline

• 1581-1582 – the verb in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[4]
• 1649 – the noun miros in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1651 – mirosesc “they smell” in a psalter.^[3][2]
• 1688 – eleven uses in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To smell, to perceive a smell; to put one's nose to something to smell it; of animals, to sniff or scent: Câinele a mirosit urma. “The dog picked up the scent.”^[5][3][1]
2. To have or give off a smell: Pâinea miroase a cuptor. “The bread smells of the oven.” In miroase a…, it bodes, it heralds something.^[5][3][1]
3. (figurative, colloquial) To sense, to suspect, to guess; to find someone or something out.^[5][12]

Word family

• miros
• miroseală
• mirosenie
• miroseață
• mirositor

Related words

• mir
• Megleno-Romanian miruses

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mirosi
3. ^ 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, 24
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. mirosi
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 659
6. ^ a b c Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 4, 119
7. ^ 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. mirosi
8. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr, p. s.v. μυρώνω
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 192
10. ^ 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. miros
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Lev 26:31
12. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. mirosi