nutreț

Forms

nutreț n (plural nutrețuri)^[1] Old and popular texts also have nătreț and notreț.^[2] Neculce writes „Sfârșise oamenii nătrețele” “the people had used up the fodder”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nūtrīcium (“nourishment”), as DER, MDA2, DEX and Tiktin give it.^[4][3][5][6] Pușcariu and Candrea and Densusianu reconstruct a popular form with a short ⟨i⟩ in place of the classical ⟨-īcium⟩, and Wiktionary describes the ending as replaced by ⟨-ĭcium⟩.^[7][8][1] Tiktin explains the ending by the model of ospăț, județ and măreț.^[6] The REW glosses the Latin word “care, food” and finds it elsewhere only in Occitan noiritz “young animal”.^[9] Ciorănescu, after Rosetti, calls it preserved only in Romanian.^[9][4]

The noun is from Latin nūtrīcius (“nourishing”), from nūtriō (“to nourish”).^[1][10] The verb nutri “to nourish” is a 19th-century learned borrowing of this Latin verb, not an inherited word, as Ciorănescu says against Pușcariu.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1703.^[6] DLR's first quotation is from Nicolae Costin's chronicle: „Da foc și caselor și nutrețelor” “he set fire to the houses and the fodder”.^[2] MDA2's year 1601 for it is taken from the chronicle's title, which runs “to 1601”.^[2][3] The sense was already that of fodder for livestock.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Șăineanu noted that the Latin word meant food in general and that Romanian narrowed it to food for animals.^[11] DLR's quotations, from Neculce and an 18th-century document to the 20th-century novel, show the fodder of cattle: hay, straw, grain plants.^[2] Older and popular use, which MDA2 and DLRLC record, extended it to any animal food, even meat: Ispirescu tells of Diomedes' mares fed on human flesh.^[12][3] MDA2 also records rare old senses, the food value of a foodstuff and feeding, and a regional idiom a-i pune cuiva nutreț pe darac “to do someone harm under a show of goodwill”.^[3] In slang it is used jocularly for food in general.^[13]

Timeline

• 1703 – the first record.^[6]
• 1729 – „arzând și pâine și nutreț” “burning both bread and fodder” in a document.^[2]
• 1808 – notreț in a chronicle: cattle died of frost and hunger for want of fodder.^[2]
• 1818 – the verb nutri in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. fodder, forage: harvested plants used as food for herbivorous livestock; furaj.^[5][1]
2. (popular) By extension, any food for animals.^[5][12]
3. (slang, jocular) Food, grub.^[13]

Related words

• nutri
• nutrica

Usage notes

The plural is nutrețuri; old texts also have nutrețe.^[3][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. nutreț
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 178
4. ^ 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. nutreț
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 726
6. ^ 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. nutreț
7. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 106
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. nutreț
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6004
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 435
12. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 233
13. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. nutreț