piemn

Forms

piemn n (plural piemnuri)^[1] It is a variant of pielm, the form the Academy dictionaries use as headword;^[2][3][4] Moldavia has chelm and chilmă.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

According to Ciorănescu it is inherited from Latin pēgma, from Ancient Greek πῆγμα (pêgma, “anything fastened together; congealed matter”), comparing Spanish pelmazo “a compressed lump”.^[5][6][1] The Greek noun is formed on πήγνυμι (pḗgnumi, “to fix, make solid”).^[7] Wiktionary notes that the Romanian sense stands closer to the Greek “congealed mass” than to the Latin, a bookcase or a stage scaffold.^[1][8]

The other proposals Ciorănescu finds doubtful: Cihac's Old Church Slavonic пьшено (pĭšeno, “flour”), Tiktin's Ancient Greek πέλμα (pélma, “sole”), first meant as flour strewn under the dough so that it does not stick, and Scriban's comparison with an Albanian word for flour.^{[5][9][10][4]} MDA2 compares the Greek word for “sole”, Șăineanu called the word of unknown origin, and DEX still does.^[11][12][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has the form pielm for flour, and in Exodus for unleavened dough: „Și luoă norodul pielmul lor mai înainte de a să frămînta aluaturile lor” “and the people took their dough before it was leavened”.^[10][2][13] The form piemn is quoted from Pann: „Cînd pui piemn mai mult, se face mămăliga mai mare” “the more flour you put in, the bigger the polenta”.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word also meant dough, a sense now obsolete.^[2] Popularly it is flour of the best quality, especially wheat flour added to cornmeal dough for a flat loaf, or strewn on bread dough so that it does not stick;^[11][5] Ciorănescu adds its use for frying meat.^[11][5] Regional senses are the fine flour dust in a mill and, in Oltenia, a thin wash of flour and water brushed on loaves before baking, and the crust it forms.^[2][11] Șăineanu and the regional dictionary give coarse-ground cornmeal in Oltenia.^[12][14]

Pann's proverbs gave the phrase a rămâne în sapă de lemn și în casă fără piemn “to be left with a wooden hoe and no flour in the house”, to become destitute.^[2][11]

Timeline

• 1688 – pielm “flour; dough” in the Bucharest Bible.^[10][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) flour of the best quality, especially wheat flour mixed into mălai dough or strewn on dough; also flour used to fry meat.^[11][5][1]
2. (regional, Oltenia) coarse-ground cornmeal.^[12][14]
3. (obsolete) dough.^[2]

Word family

• împielma

Related words

• pielm
• Latin pēgma

Usage notes

Another saying, mare-n lemn și goală-n piemn “big in timber and empty of flour”, is said of a house that looks grand outside and is poor inside.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pielm
3. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 815
4. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 977
5. ^ 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. piemn
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6364
7. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 254
10. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pielm
11. ^ 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, 373
12. ^ a b c Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 480
13. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 2 Sam 17:28
14. ^ a b Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. piemn