pică

Forms

pică f (plural pici)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French pique (“pike, lance; spades”), which Ciorănescu takes as the source of both the card suit and the sense “spite”.^[2] For “spite” he allows a route through Modern Greek πίκα (píka) and only indirectly from Italian picca and Venetian pica.^[2] Tiktin takes both senses from French, and the card suit also borrowed from German Pik.^[3][4] The DLR and DEX derive the card suit from the German and French words, but compare the sense “spite” with German Pike (“pike, lance”);^[5][6][7][8] MDA2 and Marcu derive it from that word.^[5][6][7][8] The archaic word for a lance, recorded only from 1889, is from the same German word in the DLR and MDA2.^[5][7]

Graur argued against the French source of “spite”: the French word means a petty quarrel and is little used, while Romanian has fixed phrases about bearing a grudge that do not look recent.^[9] He took the word from the Greek one, which has the same meaning and comes from Italian.^[9] Aromanian pică “spite, rancour” has the same sense, and Pascu derives it from the Italian word in the sense “pique, dispute”, with the Greek one beside it.^[10][11][2] The Greek word means both the card suit and spite, and comes from the Italian word for a lance, itself from French.^[12] Cihac compared Slovene pika (“point; rancour”) and se piquer (“to take offence”).^[13]

The French word for the pike is borrowed from Middle Dutch pike, and the card suit is named after the lance heads drawn on the cards.^[14] Both German words are from the French one.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is of 1826, for the card suit, in a work he cites as Alexi G.; the sense “spite” follows in 1839.^[4][3] MDA2 has both from Stamati's dictionary of technical and difficult words (1851).^[7]

Semantic evolution

The card sense names the black suit shaped like a stylised lance head, and by extension a card of that suit;^[5][4] Eminescu has „Să confunde-un crai de pică cu un crai de mahala” “so that it mistakes a king of spades for a back-street king”.^[5][4] The sense “spite, hidden grudge” is popular and is used with a avea, a purta and a prinde “to have, bear, catch”: Ghica wrote of the British ambassador's „veche pică” “old grudge” against Tsar Nicholas.^[5][3][7] A regional phrase în pica cuiva means “to spite someone”, as in a folk song: „Tot în pica mea să facă” “all to spite me”.^[5][16]

In 1870 Costinescu still gave the lance as the first sense, with a small quarrel that leaves a coolness as the figurative one, and the card suit separately.^[17] Barcianu glossed it in 1886 with German Groll “grudge”.^[18] In Bukovina the word also names a tool for barking felled trees.^[5]

Timeline

• 1826 – the card suit, Tiktin's first record.^[4]
• 1839 – the sense “spite”.^[3]
• 1851 – both senses in Stamati's dictionary.^[7][5]
• 1870 – “lance”, “small quarrel” and the card suit in Costinescu.^[17]
• 1889 – pică “lance” in Barițiu.^[7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (popular) Spite, a hidden grudge; ciudă, ranchiună: a avea pică pe cineva, a purta pică cuiva “to bear someone a grudge”.^[6][7][1]
2. (card games) Spades, the black suit marked with a stylised lance head; a card of that suit: damă de pică the queen of spades.^[6][5][1]
3. (obsolete) A lance or pike.^[7][5][1]
4. (Bukovina) A tool for barking felled trees.^[7][5]

Related words

• Modern Greek πίκα (píka)
• French pique

Usage notes

The plural is pici for the card sense; the DLR gives pice for the lance.^[6][5] Tiktin has a separate word pică “guinea fowl”, recorded from about 1805 in Șincai, with the variant piche, which he calls onomatopoeic; regional dictionaries give it as a synonym of bibilică.^[19][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. pică
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. pícă 3
4. ^ 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. pícă 2
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pică
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 813
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 367
8. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. pică
9. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1975), Alte etimologii românești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. pică
10. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 216
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 840
12. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1160
13. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 254
14. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
15. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
16. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 406
17. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 290
18. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 474
19. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pícă 1
20. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. pică