păducel

Forms

păducel m (plural păducei)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *peducellus, a diminutive formed in place of peduculus (“louse”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Wiktionary gives a second view: a variant of pedicellus (“small louse”) shaped by that word, which comes from pēdis (“louse”).^[1] The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian piducl'aș and Megleno-Romanian piduțel “chilblain”.^[2][8] Ciorănescu compares Italian pedicello.^[2]

The sense “itching of the feet” comes from the itch of the louse, as Tiktin says, while the hawthorn's name is less clear.^[5] Ciorănescu explains it by the sting of its fruit.^[2] Scriban linked it to a folk belief that eating the fruit gives lice, which Ciorănescu calls a folk etymology.^[9][2] Cihac blamed the aphids that fill the bush.^[10] Candrea and Densusianu compared hawthorn names in Italian dialects, such as spina pulce (“flea thorn”), and French dialect names derived from the same Latin word.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1436, among the Romanian words of the Slavonic documents.^[5] In Romanian texts it is first found in Dosoftei's verse Psalter (Uniev, 1673), as a withering shrub: „Ca păduceii să sece De pojar și de vânt rece” “that they may wither like hawthorns from scorching heat and cold wind”.^[5][12]

Semantic evolution

Beside the shrub, the word kept the literal sense “small louse” and named the harvest mite, which attacks animals in autumn.^[4][12][3] Folk medicine gave it to an itching disease of the soles and toes that people who went barefoot caught;^[5][13][2] Klein's dictionary of 1801 already has the shrub and this itch.^[5][13][2] Regionally it also means a corn, a swelling on the neck of draught oxen from the yoke, mange in sheep and cattle, and a whitlow.^[4][9][2]

Timeline

• 1436 – the first record, in the Slavonic documents.^[5]
• 1673 – păduceii “hawthorns” in Dosoftei's verse Psalter.^[5][12]
• 1688 – păducelul in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]
• 1801 – Klein gives the shrub and the itch of the soles.^[13]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it Latin Crataegus oxyacantha and “itching of the feet”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. hawthorn, a thorny shrub or small tree of the rose family with toothed leaves, clusters of white flowers and edible fruit, also grown as an ornamental (Crataegus monogyna).^[3][4][1]
2. The harvest mite, a parasite of plants that also attacks mammals (Leptus autumnalis).^[3][4][1]
3. (popular) A skin disease with strong itching on the soles or between the toes.^[3][4][1]
4. (regional) mange in sheep and cattle.^[4][9][1]
5. (rare) A small louse.^[4][12]

Related words

• păduche

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. păducel
3. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 786
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 291
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. păducel
6. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 108
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6349
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 221
9. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 946
10. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 188
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. păducel
12. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. păducel
13. ^ a b c Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 411
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 57:9
15. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 493