pișa

Forms

a pișa (third-person singular present pișă, past participle pișat); first conjugation.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pissiāre (“to piss”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin verb is of echoic origin.^[1] It survives as Aromanian chish.^[6][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian pisciare and Old French pissier.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Moxa's chronicle of 1620, in a list of „toți câți se scârnăvesc și se pișe” “all who befoul themselves and piss”.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word has always been popular and plain, the reflexive meaning “to urinate” and the transitive “to wet with urine”.^[2][3] The old language called a male pișând la perete “one who pisses against the wall”: „Voi piarde pre Ahaav pișind la părete” “I will destroy from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall”.^[4][3] Folk speech has many phrases: a nu ști pe unde se pișă găina “to be still green”, a se pișa împotriva vântului “to rebel, harming only oneself”.^[3][5] In vulgar speech the reflexive also means not to care about something.^[1]

Timeline

• 1620 – se pișe in Moxa's chronicle, the first record.^[3][5]
• 1645 – in the Romanian translation of Herodotus.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (popular, reflexive) To urinate, piss.^[2][1]
2. (popular, transitive) To wet with urine.^[2][7]
3. (vulgar, reflexive) Not to care at all about something.^[1]

Word family

• piș
• pișat

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 823
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, 393
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pișa
5. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pișa
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 297
7. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. pișa