porcar

Forms

porcar m (plural porcari)^[1] The variant purcar is popular.^[2][3] An old form purcariu is also recorded.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin porcārius (“swineherd”) according to Tiktin, Candrea–Densusianu, Șăineanu and the REW.^[4][5][6][7] Ciorănescu lists it under porc and says it could come straight from Latin, as Pușcariu held.^[8] DEX, MDA2 and NODEX instead derive it from Romanian porc + -ar, comparing the Latin word.^[2][3][9] Scriban gives both views.^[10] The Latin word is formed from porcus (“pig”) with the suffix -ārius.^[1]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian purcar and Megleno-Romanian purcar.^[11][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian porcaio, French porcher, Occitan porquier, Catalan porquer, Spanish porquero and Portuguese porqueiro.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1473.^[4] In a Romanian text it appears in Moxa's chronicle of 1620, which tells how Romulus and Remus lived among the swineherds who grazed the herds.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is the man who herds and tends pigs.^[2] Regionally it also means a pig dealer.^[3] With the article, Porcarul is a folk name of the star Aldebaran in Taurus.^[3] The 17th-century lexicons render Slavonic свинар “swineherd” with it.^[12] A feminine porcăreasă “swineherd woman” is recorded in 19th-century dictionaries.^[13][5]

Timeline

• 1473 – the first record Tiktin gives.^[4]
• 1620 – porcarii in Moxa's chronicle.^[3][4]
• c. 1660 – the lexicon Lex.St., glossing a Slavonic word for a swineherd.^[12]
• 1886 – Barcianu has porcar and the feminine porcăreasă.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A swineherd: a person who herds and looks after pigs.^[2][9][1]
2. (regional) A pig dealer.^[3]
3. (popular, with the article) A folk name of the star Aldebaran, in the constellation Taurus.^[3]

Word family

• porcăreasă
• porcăraș

Related words

• porc
• poarcă
• Aromanian purcar

Usage notes

MDA2 has a separate porcar for a player in some ball games who catches the ball thrown by the other side and tries to hit an opponent or a mark with it, formed from poarcă, the name of a children's game, with -ar.^[3][14][4]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 850
3. ^ 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, 470
4. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. porcar
5. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. porcar
6. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 497
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6659
8. ^ a b 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. porc
9. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. porcar
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1018
11. ^ 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, 146
12. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. porcar
13. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 490
14. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. porcar