nisip

Forms

nisip n (plural nisipuri)^[1] The old form is năsip, still regional: „În locu cu năsipu, lăsară corabiia” “they left the ship in a sandy place” (Codicele Voronețean).^[2][3] Tiktin records năs- as the old and Moldavian form of the word and of its derivatives;^[4][3] MDA2 also lists the regional variants năsâp, nasip and nesip.^[4][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Bulgarian насип (nasip, “heaped gravel or sand”), according to MDA2, the DLR, DEX 2009, NODEX and Wiktionary.^{[3][2][5][6][1]} Ciorănescu, following Miklosich and Cihac, takes it from Old Church Slavonic насъпъ (nasŭpŭ), and Tiktin compares the same Church Slavonic word, “something heaped up”, from the verb “to heap on”.^[7][4] The Slavic noun is formed on Proto-Slavic *sypati (“to pour, strew”) with the prefix *na-.^[7][1][8] Its cognates include Serbo-Croatian nasip (“embankment, dike”).^[7][1]

Ciorănescu rejects Conev's derivation from the Slavic word for sand, Bulgarian пясък (pjasăk).^[7][8] He and Scriban relate risipi “to scatter” to the same Slavic verb.^[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1534, from the dictionary of Romanian words in the Slavonic documents.^[4] In Romanian texts the word appears as năsip in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the account of a shipwreck: the sailors ran the ship aground in a sandy place.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The old word for sand was arină, from Latin: in the psalm verse about birds as many as the sand of the sea, one 16th-century psalter has arina where another of Coresi's has năsipul.^[2] MDA2 still lists arină as an old and regional synonym.^[3] The Bible of 1688 promises Abraham descendants „ca năsipul cel de pe țărmurele mării” “as the sand on the seashore”, and ca nisipul mării became an idiom for “countless”.^[4][5]

The plural nisipuri names sandy ground, such as the sands of the Sahara.^[9][5] The figurative a clădi pe nisip “to build on sand”, for an undertaking without solid foundations, is in Costinescu's dictionary of 1870.^[10][5] Medicine uses the word for the fine deposits that form in the kidneys, the bladder or the gall bladder.^[5]

Timeline

• 1534 – first record, in a Slavonic document.^[4]
• c. 1563–1583 – năsip in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][2]
• 1570 – nisipul in Coresi's psalter.^[11]
• 1688 – năsipul “the sand” of the seashore in the Bucharest Bible.^[4]
• 1870 – a clădi pe nisip “to build on sand” in Costinescu.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. sand: loose sedimentary rock made of fine mineral grains; by extension, especially in the plural, sandy ground with little vegetation.^[5][3][1]
2. (medicine) gravel: fine grains of oxalates, urates and similar salts deposited in the kidneys, the bladder or the gall bladder.^[5]

Word family

• nisipariță
• nisiparniță
• nisipi
• nisipar
• nisipiș
• nisipiu
• nisipos
• înnisipa

Related words

• risipi

Usage notes

Set phrases: ca nisipul mării “as many as the sand of the sea, countless”, and a clădi pe nisip “to build on sand”, to undertake something bound to fail.^[5][6] DEX 2009 lists năsip as a regional variant.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. nisip
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, 157
4. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. nisip
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 717
6. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. nisip
7. ^ 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. nisip
8. ^ a b Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 873
10. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 177
11. ^ 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 77:31