piper

Forms

piper m (plural piperi)^[1] Old texts also have chiper, chiperi and chiperiu: the Romanian Herodotus of 1645 tells of a vessel filled „cu chiperi”, and Amfilohie wrote „În Sumatra se face bun chiperiu” “good pepper grows in Sumatra”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic пиперь (piperĭ), as Ciorănescu holds after Miklosich and the REW.^[4] DEX, MDA2 and the DLR give a double source, the Slavonic word and Modern Greek πιπέρι (pipéri); the REW names Modern Greek or Bulgarian, and Wiktionary gives Bulgarian пипер (piper).^{[5][6][2][7][1]} Tiktin traces it indirectly to Latin.^[8] The Slavonic word continues Proto-Slavic *pьpьrь, borrowed from Latin piper.^[1][4] The Greek word is a diminutive of Ancient Greek πέπερι (péperi), an eastern word that spread with the spice trade;^[9][10][1] The Latin word comes from the same Greek word, which is often traced to Sanskrit पिप्पलि (pippali, “long pepper”).^[9][10][1]

The word also exists south of the Danube: Aromanian piper and Megleno-Romanian piper.^[4][11][12] Cihac in 1870 still placed it with the Latin element, beside Italian pepe and French poivre.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is of 1466, from the collection he cites as DERS.^[8] In Romanian texts it appears in Ureche's chronicle of about 1642–1647, among the goods of a land that yields wheat, rice, ginger, cinnamon and pepper, and as chiperi in a Herodotus translation of 1645.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In 18th-century letters pepper is a trade good bought with coffee.^[2] As a spice it gave many figurative phrases: cu piper “spicy, risqué” of jokes, a avea piper pe limbă “to have a sharp tongue”, a i se sui piperul la nas “to lose one's temper”.^[5][6] Regionally the name passed to the sweet pepper, ardei, and piper roșu is paprika.^[5][3] As a neuter noun piperul is a folk dance played at weddings.^[5][8] The Romanian adjective piperat was borrowed into Modern Greek as πιπερᾶτος, according to Ciorănescu.^[4]

Timeline

• 1466 – Tiktin's first record.^[8]
• c. 1642–1647 – piper in Ureche's chronicle.^[6][2]
• 1645 – chiperi in a Herodotus translation.^[2]
• 1725 – pepper as a trade good in merchants' letters.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. pepper: a tropical climbing plant whose berries, black when ripe, are used whole or ground as a spice (Piper nigrum); the berries or the ground spice.^[5][6]
2. cu piper: of jokes or stories, spicy, slightly indecent;^[5] (figurative) a lively, witty element.^[5]
3. (regional) ardei, the sweet pepper, and its fruit;^[5] piper roșu: paprika.^[5]
4. (neuter, with the article) A folk dance performed at weddings, and its tune.^[5]

Word family

• pipăruș
• pipera
• piperat
• piperniță

Related words

• Latin piper

Usage notes

Fixed expressions include a-i sta (cuiva) ca piperu-n nas “to be unbearable to someone” and a face (pe cineva) cu sare și cu piper “to scold someone harshly”.^[5][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. piper
3. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 981
4. ^ a b c d 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. piper
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 820
6. ^ 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, 385
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6521
8. ^ 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. piper
9. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1163
10. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 845
12. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 222
13. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 205