nasol

Forms

nasol m or n (feminine singular nasoală, masculine plural nasoli, feminine/neuter plural nasoale)^[1] Variants are nasul and the feminine năsoală.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Romani nasvalo (“sick”), a Romani word that came into Romanian slang.^[4][2][5] Ciorănescu thinks the vowel ⟨o⟩ is best explained from the feminine form.^[4] It was mixed up with the slang adjective nasul (“bad, mean”), from nasul.^[4] MDA2, the DLR and DEX give both Romani words as sources, and Wiktionary only the second, glossed “bad, evil”.^[2][3][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DLR quotes a periodical of 1923 in which a hat is called nasoală, “shabby”.^[3] MDA2 takes its first record from the Iași Buletinul Institutului de filologie română, where the word is listed as slang for “ugly”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word was first slang, and DEX 1998 still labels it so;^[6][5] DEX 2009 labels it only colloquial.^[6][5] Said of people, it means ugly, ridiculous, stupid or nasty; by confusion with nas (“nose”) it was also used for someone with a big nose.^[2][3] Said of things, it means shabby, worn or of poor quality.^[3][2] As a feminine noun nasoală was slang for a cigarette and for a woman.^[2][4]

Slang formed several derivatives: nasuliu “ugly”, nasuli “to fail”, of a deal, and nasulie “bad luck, a bad situation”.^[4] Later phrases are a băga pe nasoale “to slander; to talk about something without knowing it” and a fi pe nasoale “to be in a bad way”.^[7]

Timeline

• 1923 – nasoală “shabby” of a hat, in a periodical.^[3]
• 1972 – the phrases a băga pe nasoale and a fi pe nasoale described by Coman Lupu.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (colloquial) Of a person: ugly or ridiculous; also as a noun, an ugly or ridiculous person.^[5][2][1]
2. (colloquial) Of a thing: of poor quality, ugly, shabby, laughable.^[5][2][1]
3. (slang) Bad, unpleasant; uncool: E nasol să pierzi trenul.^[2][1]

Word family

• nasuliu
• nasuli
• nasoală
• nasulie

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 96
3. ^ 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. nasol
4. ^ a b c d e 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. nasol
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 690
6. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 669
7. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. nasol