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păcurar

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word păcurar

păcurar1 shepherd

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1505 a record in the Slavonic documents
Inherited from
Latin pecorarius
Ultimate origin
Latin pecus

Pronunciation

  • /pə.kuˈrar/[1]

Forms

păcurar m (plural păcurari)[1]

Etymology

The word for the shepherd is inherited from Latin pecorārius, recorded in Latin for a farmer of the public pastures and herds.[2][3][4][1][5] The REW starts from a form with the sense “herdsman”.[6] The Latin word is formed on pecus (“livestock, cattle”) with the agent suffix -ārius.[1]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian picurar (also picular), Megleno-Romanian picurar and Istro-Romanian pecuror.[2][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian pecoraio, Sicilian picuraru, Galician pegueiro and Portuguese pegureiro.[2][9][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1505, among the Romanian words of the Slavonic documents.[10] The first Romanian text is the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581, in the story of Abel and Cain: „Și Avel fu păcurariu, e Cain un plugari” “and Abel was a shepherd, and Cain a ploughman”.[11][4]

Semantic evolution

The word meant “shepherd” from the start, and the church texts used it figuratively for a Christian priest, the shepherd of a flock.[4][12] Regionally it also names a goatherd, a cowherd or a swineherd, a lark, a round dance and its tune, and in păcurarul cu oile a children's game.[4][13][10][2]

Ciorănescu, after Caracostea and Pușcariu, explains its retreat by the clash with păcurar2 “oil worker”: where crude oil was dug, the herdsman's word gave way to cioban, and it lives on mainly in Transylvania.[2][6] Ștef's Maramureș dictionary adds that before the interwar years păcurar was the only word in Transylvania, the Banat, Crișana and Maramureș and cioban the only one outside the Carpathians, and that cioban spread everywhere by the end of the 20th century.[14]

Hungarian borrowed the word as pakulár (“shepherd”), recorded from 1568.[15][16][2] It is also a family name, Păcurariu being recorded in the 16th century.[17][1]

Timeline

  • 1505 – the first record, in the Slavonic documents.[10]
  • 1568 – Hungarian pakulár, borrowed from Romanian.[15][16]
  • 1581 – păcurariu “shepherd” in the Palia de la Orăștie.[11][4]
  • 1645 – a păcurarului in the Romanian translation of Herodotus.[11]
  • c. 1660 – it glosses Slavonic пастыръ “shepherd” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.[18]
  • c. 1675 – păcurarii in Miron Costin's chronicle of Moldavia.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (dated, regional) A shepherd or herdsman.[3][4][19]
  2. (figurative) A Christian priest, a pastor.[4]
  3. (regional) A goatherd, a cowherd or a swineherd.[4][13]
  4. (regional) A lark.[2][13]
  5. (regional) A folk round dance, and the tune it is danced to.[4][13]

Word family

  • păcurăresc
  • păcurărește

păcurar2 oil worker, oil seller

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1847 Anton Pann's proverbs
Ultimate origin
Latin pix
Etymology tree of păcurar2
inherited borrowed derived
Romanian păcură
Romanian păcurar

Pronunciation

  • /pə.kuˈrar/[1]

Forms

păcurar m (plural păcurari)[1]

Etymology

The word for the oil worker is formed from Romanian păcură + -ar, from the word for crude oil and the agent suffix.[3][4][11][20][21][1] Cihac compared Spanish peguero and Occitan pegairo, formed in the same way on the Romance words for pitch.[22] Constantinescu held that this sense was a mistake for păcureț, his name for the oil worker.[17]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in Anton Pann's proverbs of 1847: „Cu păcurarul când trăiești, Trebuie să te mânjești” “if you live with the oil man, you get smeared”.[20][11]

Semantic evolution

The word named both the man who dug crude oil from the ground and, more often in the past, the pedlar who went from village to village selling crude oil and lamp oil, also called a găzar.[4][11][3] Cihac (1870) and Barcianu (1886) give it as the man who sells tar.[22][23] The spread of this sense is what drove păcurar1 “shepherd” out of use in the oil districts.[2][6]

Timeline

  • 1847 – Anton Pann's proverb about the oil man.[20]
  • 1870 – Cihac gives it as the man who extracts or sells tar and bitumen.[22]
  • 1886 – Barcianu glosses it “tar seller”.[23]
  • 1893 – Damé's dictionary, MDA2's first record.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (regional) A worker who extracts crude oil from the ground.[3][4]
  2. (dated) An itinerant pedlar who sold crude oil and lamp oil in the villages.[3][4][24]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. păcurar
  3. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 785
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 290
  5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6326
  7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 841
  8. ^ 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, 142
  9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. păcurar
  10. ^ 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. păcurar 1
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. păcurar
  12. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 227
  13. ^ a b c d Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. păcurar
  14. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. păcurár
  15. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 66
  16. ^ a b Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
  17. ^ a b Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. păcurar
  18. ^ 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. păcurar
  19. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. păcurar
  20. ^ 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. păcurar 2
  21. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 946
  22. ^ a b c Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 188
  23. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 449
  24. ^ Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 421

Related etymologies

  • apă · also from Latin
  • bun · also from Latin
  • unde · also from Latin
  • veni · also from Latin
  • noi · also from Latin
  • bine · also from Latin
  • un · also from Latin
  • și · also from Latin
Cite this entry

“Păcurar.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/p%C4%83curar. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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