nutrica

Forms

nutrica (third-person singular present nutrică, past participle nutricat, third-person subjunctive nutrice) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nūtrīcō (“to suckle, nurse”), as MDA2, DLR and Wiktionary give it.^[2][3][1] The Latin verb is formed on nūtrīx (“wet nurse”) and is used by Plautus and Varro.^[4] The REW lists its descendants in Aromanian and in the dialects of Italy and Occitan, among them Occitan noirigar.^[5]

Papahagi records Aromanian nutric as a variant of mãtric and niric.^[6] Wiktionary takes the Aromanian verb either from the same Latin verb or from a variant of that verb.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Laurian and Massim's dictionary of 1871, with the sense “to suckle, to feed”; their example has sows suckling eight piglets.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The verb is rare in the literary language.^[2] DLR records a regional sense from Zagra in Năsăud, where it is said of money spent on food: the borrowed money was all “eaten up”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1871 – the first record, in Laurian and Massim's dictionary.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, rare) To suckle, to feed.^[2][3][1]
2. (transitive, regional) To spend money or earnings on food.^[2][3]

Related words

• nutri
• nutreț
• Aromanian nutric

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 178
3. ^ 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. nutrica
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. nūtrīcāre
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 790