pășune

Forms

pășune f (plural pășuni)^[1] Older and popular speech also has a variant pășună, and a regional părșune.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pastiō (“pasturing; pasture”).^{[4][3][2][5][6][1][7]} The Latin noun is formed on pāscō (“to feed, to graze”), the source of Romanian paște.^[8][1][9]

The word survives in Aromanian pãshuni and Istro-Romanian pășure.^[4][10][11] Romance cognates include Italian pasciona, French paisson and Occitan paison.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[3] Tiktin cites it from the Psaltirea Scheiană, at Psalm 22, and the psalters of Coresi have pășune at the same psalm.^[5][12] The sense was already “pasture”.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed close to the Latin: a place covered with grass where cattle graze, and by restriction the grass itself.^[2][3] The older sense “grazing”, the act, survives in old and regional use.^[2][3] Grigore Ureche wrote of nomads who „în cîmpi, după pășune, cu dobitoacele umblă” “wander in the plains with their cattle in search of pasture”.^[6]

Romanian formed the verb pășuna “to graze” and the nouns pășunat and pășuneală.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3]
• 1570 – pășune in Coresi's psalter.^[12]
• c. 1642-1647 – după pășune in Grigore Ureche's chronicle.^[6]
• 1649 – pășune in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – pășune in the Bucharest Bible.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pasture: land covered with perennial grass where cattle graze; by restriction, the grass itself.^[2][3][1]
2. (dated, regional) grazing, the feeding of animals on grass.^[2][3]

Word family

• pășuna
• pășuneală
• pășunat

Related words

• paște
• păstor
• Aromanian pãshuni

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 790
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 311
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. pășune
5. ^ 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. pășune
6. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pășune
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6278
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 833
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, 139
12. ^ a b 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 22:1
13. ^ 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. pășune