papură

Forms

papură f (plural papuri)^[1] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 often has paporă: „Tot băhnișul trestiei și al paporei” “all the marsh of reed and bulrush” (Isaiah 19:7).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *papura, a popular form of Latin papȳrus (“papyrus”), which is from Ancient Greek πάπυρος (pápuros).^{[3][4][5][6][1]} Ciorănescu calls the intermediate form probable, citing Schuchardt, Candrea, Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and the REW.^[3] The Greek word is a loanword of unknown origin.^[7]

It survives in Megleno-Romanian papră and păpură.^[3][8] Bulgarian папур (papur) comes from Romanian, as Capidan showed.^[3][1] The learned papirus is its doublet, from French.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1592, in a document of the collection Documente privind istoria României.^[2] In 1645 the Romanian Herodotus tells of bulrush and other water plants that are dried and made into bread.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Romanian the word names the bulrush or reed mace (Typha), not the Egyptian plant, and its long leaves, used for mats, baskets and for caulking barrels.^[4][9] Miron Costin tells of a famine so great that people dried and ground bulrush to make bread; it fell under Ștefăniță-Vodă (1659–1660), whom the people nicknamed Papură-Vodă.^[5][2] From him din vremea lui Papură-Vodă means “from olden times”.^[2][9]

The idiom a căuta nod în papură “to look for a knot in a bulrush” means to find fault where there is none, since the stem has no knots.^[10][11] By extension the word was used for a rush mat.^[11]

Timeline

• 1592 – first record, in a document.^[2]
• 1645 – papură in the Romanian Herodotus.^[5]
• c. 1675 – Miron Costin's account of the famine, when people ate bulrush.^[5]
• 1688 – paporă in the Bucharest Bible.^[2][12]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary renders it with Latin Donax, Juncus.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. bulrush, reed mace: the aquatic plants of the genus Typha, with tall unbranched stems and long narrow leaves, growing in marshes.^[4][11][1]
2. The leaves of these plants, woven into mats and baskets.^[4][11]
3. (rare) A rush mat.^[11]

Word family

• păpuri
• păpuriș
• păpurică
• paporniță

Related words

• papirus
• Megleno-Romanian papră

Usage notes

A căuta (cuiva) nod în papură is “to nitpick, to find fault for no reason”.^[10][11] A second papură, of unknown origin, is an old word for a cloth woven with gold thread (from 1726–1733) and, rarely, a cushion.^[14][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pápură
3. ^ a b c d e 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. papură
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 770
5. ^ 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. papură 1
6. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. papură
7. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. πάπυρος
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 214
9. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 931
10. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 317
11. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 261
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ieșirea 2:3
13. ^ 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. 413
14. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. papură 2