pernă

Forms

pernă f (plural perne)^[1] The variant perină, closer to the Slavic form, is popular and northern;^[2] Eminescu writes of golden hair spread „peste perini” “over the pillows”.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Serbo-Croatian perina according to DEX, MDA2 and Wiktionary.^[4][5][1] Ciorănescu gives the source as Old Church Slavonic перина (perina), and Tiktin and Scriban compare Bulgarian перина (perina) and the Serbo-Croatian word as well.^[6][3][7] The Slavic word goes back to Proto-Slavic *perina, formed on *pero (“feather”) with the suffix *-ina: a bag filled with feathers.^[8][1] The Bulgarian etymological dictionary lists the Romanian words among the borrowings from Slavic and thinks the dialect form перна (perna) of Bulgaria may in turn be taken from Romanian.^[8]

Aromanian has instead perniță, which Ciorănescu takes from перница (pernica).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1509.^[3] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 has pernă, and later lexicons gloss a Slavonic word for “headrest” with perină.^[9][10] MDA2's first record is Dosoftei's verse Psalter.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense has always been a bag stuffed with feathers, wool or straw to rest the head on.^[5][4] It was extended to the cushions of chairs and car seats and to technical objects of similar shape: the pernă de călcat “ironing pad” and the pernă electrică “heating pad”.^[4] Folk technical speech gave the name to wooden pieces that something rests on: a part of a mill wheel, and the two bars under a barrel in a cellar.^[11][12] In Bessarabia it also means a straw mattress.^[13] The phrase a muri fără pernă la cap “to die without a pillow under one's head” means to die alone and in great poverty.^[5][2] A later technical sense is a layer of air, water or magnetic force that keeps two bodies apart, as in pernă de aer “air cushion”, recorded in the press from 1978.^[14]

Timeline

• 1509 – the first record.^[3]
• 1649 – pernă in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[9]
• 1660 – perină glosses a Slavonic word for “headrest”.^[10]
• 1978 – avion pe pernă de aer “hovercraft” in the press.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pillow: a cloth case filled with down, wool or the like, on which one rests one's head in bed; also an ironing pad (pernă de călcat) or a heating pad (pernă electrică).^[4][5]
2. A cushion for a chair, sofa or car seat, often with springs inside.^[4]
3. pernă de aer: an air cushion, a current of air between two moving surfaces that serves as a lubricant.^[4][14]

Word family

• perniță
• perinuță
• perinoc
• pernuță

Related words

• perie
• Serbo-Croatian perina

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 390
3. ^ 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. pernă
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 806
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 352
6. ^ a b 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. pernă
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 967
8. ^ a b Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 5, 173
9. ^ a b 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. pernă
10. ^ a b 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. perină
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 476
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. pernă
13. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. s.v. pernă
14. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. pernă