pește

Forms

pește m (plural pești)^[1] An old plural peștiuri and a rare old form piște (Klein) are recorded.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin piscis (“fish”), from the accusative piscem.^{[4][3][2][1][5]} The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *peysk- (“fish”).^[1][6]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian peaște, Megleno-Romanian pęști and Istro-Romanian peșt.^[4][7] Its Romance cognates include Italian pesce, Occitan peis, Catalan peix, Spanish pez and Portuguese peixe;^[4][8] Latin also gave Albanian peshk.^[4][8]

Aromanian also has pescu.^[4] Ciorănescu holds that it, the Albanian word and most of the derivatives (pescui, pescuț, păscoi) point to an older Romanian singular like the Aromanian one.^[4] Tiktin explains them instead as new formations from the plural, after pescar.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The plural peștii appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, in Psalm 8:8, “the fish of the sea”.^[10][9] MDA2 dates the first record to the Codicele Voronețean, which speaks of every kind of beast, bird and fish being tamed by man.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the animal the word means its meat and the zodiac sign Pisces;^[4][2] zodia peștelui is recorded in a calendar of 1733.^[4][2] Popular speech calls the muscle of the arm or calf pește, a use Italian shares.^[2][5] The slang sense “pimp” is a calque of French poisson.^[2][4]

Timeline

• early 16th century – peștii in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10]
• 16th century – peștilor in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][2]
• 1569 – „alta a peștelui” “another flesh of fish” in a text.^[2]
• 1733 – zodia peștelui “Pisces” in a calendar.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. fish: a cold-blooded animal of the water that breathes through gills and swims with fins;^[11][3][1] (plural) the class of these animals.^[11][3][1]
2. Fish as food.^[4]
3. (in the plural) Pisces, the sign of the zodiac.^[4][2]
4. (slang) A pimp.^[4][1]

Word family

• păscoi
• peștoaică
• peștișoară
• pescos
• pescuit
• pescuitor
• pescuț
• pescuină
• pescui

Related words

• pescar
• pescăresc
• pescărie
• Aromanian peaște
• Latin piscis

Usage notes

Common expressions are a tăcea ca peștele “to keep completely silent” and ca peștele în apă “like a fish in water”.^[11] Pești zburători are flying fish.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pește
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, 360
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. pește
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6532
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 836
8. ^ a b Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
9. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pește
10. ^ 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 8:8
11. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 809