poamă

Forms

poamă f (plural poame)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pōma (“fruits”), the plural of pōmum (“fruit”), taken as a feminine singular.^[2][3][4][1] Pușcariu set out this reading of the plural, and the REW lists the Romanian word under the Latin neuter.^[2][5] The Latin word is from Proto-Italic *poomos.^[1]

It survives in Aromanian as poame.^[2] The same feminine underlies Italian poma and French pomme (“apple”).^[2][6] Çabej, following Pușcariu, derives Albanian pemë (“fruit”) from the same feminine *poma, against La Piana's link with the Albanian verb for “bake, ripen”.^[7] The DHLF notes that the Latin noun kept its general sense “fruit” in Romanian, while in much of the West it came to mean “apple”.^[6] Romanian pom “fruit tree” continues the Latin form pōmus.^[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, a manuscript of the early 16th century.^[3] Tiktin cites it from the Psaltirea Scheiană (Psalm 78:1).^[9] The sense there is “fruit”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The general sense “fruit” is the oldest, and the sense “fruit of a fruit tree” the commonest.^[3][4] In the plural the word also means fruit cut in slices and dried for the winter.^[4][9] In Moldavia and Bucovina the singular has a collective sense, “grapes”, recorded in the old literary language from the 17th century; the Bible of 1688 has poamă de amărăciune “a grape of bitterness”.^[10][4] From there it came to mean the vine itself and, in some areas, raisins.^[3][4] In the Republic of Moldova it also names a vineyard.^[11]

Applied to people, the word became pejorative: poamă acră “sour fruit” is a nagging, spiteful person, a phrase known from the folk rhyme against the mother-in-law, Soacră, soacră, poamă acră.^[4][9] Poamă alone is a worthless person or a loose woman, also in slang.^[4][12] Compounds name plants: poame-de-pământ “potatoes”, poame-de-runc “raspberries” and poama-vulpii, herb Paris.^[3][4] In Transylvania and Maramureș poama lui Adam is the Adam's apple.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – poamă “fruit” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3]
• 16th century – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[9]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – poamă de amărăciune “grape of bitterness” in the Bucharest Bible.^[10][14]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses it with Latin fructus.^[15]
• 1825 – pomă in the Lexicon of Buda, “fruit of a tree”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. The edible fruit of a fruit tree; generally, any fruit.^[4][3][1]
2. (in the plural) dried fruit: fruit sliced and dried in the sun or an oven for the winter.^[4][3]
3. (regional, Moldavia; collective singular) Grapes; by extension the vine, or a raisin.^[4][3][1]
4. (figurative, colloquial) A worthless, unprincipled person; a loose woman.^[4][12]

Word family

• pomiță
• pomușoară
• pomar
• pomărie
• pomoroage

Related words

• pom
• pomet
• Aromanian poame
• Latin pōmum

Usage notes

Poamă acră “sour fruit” is a cantankerous, spiteful person.^[4][3] Said of a person, ce poamă “what fruit” asks what sort of person someone is.^[9][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. poamă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 432
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 838
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6645
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Çabej, Eqrem (2002), Studime etimologjike në fushë të shqipes VI (N–Rr), Tiranë
8. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 211
9. ^ 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. poamă
10. ^ a b Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 226
11. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău
12. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu
13. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Deuteronomy 32:32
15. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study)
16. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.)
17. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1002