nucă

Forms

nucă f (plural nuci)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nux (“nut”), as the DEX, MDA2 and the DLR give it.^[2][3][4] Tiktin explains that Romanian split the Latin noun into a masculine *nucus for the tree and a feminine *nuca for the fruit, on the model of pirus and pira, which gave păr and pară.^[5] Ciorănescu instead treats the word as a Romanian feminine made on the tree name nuc: Romanian names trees with masculines and their fruits with feminines, as with măr and prun.^[6] Șăineanu also calls it a form drawn from the masculine,^[7] and Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[1]

Aromanian has nuc and nucã, and Megleno-Romanian nucă.^[6][1] In the other Romance languages the Latin word names the fruit: Italian noce, Sardinian nuge, French noix, Occitan notz, Catalan nou, Spanish nuez and Portuguese noz.^[6][8][9] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *knuks and is related to Old Irish cnú and Old English hnutu.^[1][10] Because the root is found only in Italic, Celtic and Germanic and has an unusual shape, de Vaan takes it to be a loan from a non-Indo-European language.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1532, in a document.^[11] In Romanian texts the plural nuci appears twice in the Bucharest Bible of 1688.^[12] MDA2 and the DLR date the first record they quote to about 1705, the phrase găoci de nuci “nutshells” in a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The word names the fruit of the walnut tree and, as a mass noun, its edible kernel.^[3][2] Compounds name other nuts and seeds: nucă-de-cocos “coconut”, older nuca-cocului, nucă galică “gall nut”, and nucă-de-mare or nucă tămâioasă “nutmeg”.^[3][13] The Lexicon of Buda (1825) already gives a technical sense, the nut of a screw or press.^[14] Șăineanu records nuca genunchiului “kneecap” and the sense “woody outgrowth on trees”, as in nuci de stejar “oak galls”.^[7] The DEX adds a mechanical sense, a rod ending in a ball that forms a joint in machines.^[2]

The fruit appears in fixed comparisons: a se potrivi ca nuca-n perete “to fit like a nut on a wall” means not to fit at all, and Tiktin gives German wie die Faust aufs Auge as its equivalent.^[2][11][8] Another phrase answers “never”: când o face plopul nuci “when the poplar bears walnuts”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1532 – the first record, in a document.^[11]
• 1682 – nucile glosses the Slavonic word for “nuts” in the Moscow Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1688 – nuci in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• c. 1705 – găoci de nuci “nutshells”.^[3][4]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda gives the sense “nut of a screw”.^[14]
• 1929 – Șăineanu records nuca genunchiului “kneecap”.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A walnut, the fruit of the nuc: an edible kernel in a woody shell, covered by a green husk that dries and splits when ripe; more generally a nut.^[2][3][1]
2. Walnut kernel as a food: prăjitură cu nucă “walnut cake”.^[2][3]
3. In compounds, other nuts and seeds: nucă-de-cocos “coconut”;^[2][13] nucă vomică “nux vomica”, the strychnine-bearing seeds of a tropical tree;^[2][13] nucă galică “gall nut”.^[2][13]
4. (technical) A ball joint: a metal rod ending in a spherical head, used to join machine parts.^[2]

Word family

• nucșoară

Related words

• nucet
• nuc
• Aromanian nucã
• Latin nux

Usage notes

The plural is nuci;^[3] MDA2 also records a regional plural nuce and an old genitive nucei.^[3]

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 DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 723
3. ^ 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, 172
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. nucă
5. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. nuc
6. ^ a b c 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. nuc
7. ^ a b c Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 434
8. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 878
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6009
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. nucă
12. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 43:11
13. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. nucă
14. ^ a b 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. 450
15. ^ 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. nucile