pântecos

Forms

pântecos m or n (feminine singular pântecoasă, masculine plural pântecoși, feminine/neuter plural pântecoase)^[1]

Etymology

DEX, MDA2 and the DLR take it as a formation from Romanian pântece + -os, “having a big belly”.^[2][3][4][1] The older dictionaries derive it straight from Latin: Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu, Tiktin, Scriban and Șăineanu give Latin panticōsus (“big-bellied”), which Pușcariu cites from Servius's commentary on Virgil.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[1] The noun pântece itself is inherited from pantex (“belly”).^[1]

The cognate Aromanian pãnticos is traced by Papahagi and Pascu to the same Latin adjective, and by Wiktionary to the Aromanian noun pãnticã with the same suffix.^[10][11][1] Bogrea discussed the word in 1920–1921 among the Latin elements, an article the DLR cites.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1660, and a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of c. 1660–1670 has pîntecos as the equivalent of Slavonic words for “fat, stout”.^[7][12] MDA2 and the DLR start from the Mineiul of 1776, where a man is described with a long thin beard and “a little paunchy”, „puținel cam pîntecos”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The adjective describes people and animals with a large belly, and it is often used as a noun for such a person.^[4][13] It is also said of objects with bulging sides, a jug or a flask: Eminescu has „garafa pîntecoasă”, the pot-bellied carafe.^[7][13][9] Regionally, in the feminine form pînticoasă, it means “pregnant”, recorded at Marginea near Rădăuți in the linguistic atlas.^[4][3]

Timeline

• c. 1660 – pîntecos in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12][7]
• 1776 – pîntecos of a man in the Mineiul.^[3][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (of people and animals) potbellied, having a large, protruding belly; burtos; also as a noun, a potbellied person.^[2][3][4][1]
2. (of women; regional) pregnant.^[3][4]
3. (figurative, of objects) bulging, with sides rounded outwards: o ploscă pântecoasă “a pot-bellied flask”.^[2][14]

Related words

• pântece
• Aromanian pãnticos

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 793
3. ^ 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, 320
4. ^ 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. pîntecos
5. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 116
6. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
7. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pântecos
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 988
9. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 459
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 858
11. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 144
12. ^ a b 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. pîntecos
13. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 440
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. pântecos