premândă

Forms

premândă f (plural premânde)^[1] MDA2 records the variants prămândă, primândă and a neuter premund.^[2] The form primândă “bread” occurs in a saying from Crișcior: „Fără primindă nu se satură omu cu păzitură, fie cât de bună” “without bread a man is not filled by what he eats with it, however good”.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Hungarian prémonda, a word of Transylvanian Hungarian folk speech.^[2][3][4] Tamás records the Hungarian dialect forms prămonda and peremonda for a payment in kind to workers, and the learned prebenda from the first half of the 17th century on; the Hungarian word is from Late Latin praebenda (“allowance, prebend”), which had become a popular word in Transylvania.^[4] He rejects Damian's view that the Hungarian word came from Romanian, and notes that the Romanian word is found only in Transylvania.^[4] The Latin noun is formed on praebeō (“to offer, supply”) and meant the support given by the state to a private person.^[5]

Tiktin, Cihac, the REW and the DLRM take the word directly from the Latin noun.^[6][7][8][9] Tiktin explains the ⟨m⟩ for ⟨b⟩ by comparing spăimânt from *expaventum, and he compares the Hungarian word.^[6] Tamás finds the direct Latin derivation historically unfounded.^[4] Scriban derives the word from prebendă, perhaps influenced by comândă.^[10] Wiktionary compares Italian provenda and Old French provende and calls the neologism a doublet of the word.^[1] The REW traces these Romance forms to a Latin variant probenda made after prōvideō (“to provide”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1806, in Klein's dictionary.^[6] MDA2's first record is the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825,^[2] which glosses it “income, revenue” and “a fixed ration of bread, wine, candles and the like”, an allowance in kind.^[11] Its authors derived it from Latin praebita by metathesis, a view of their time.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word belongs to the old farm economy of Transylvania: the payment in food given to farm hands and servants, and in the west of Transylvania and Maramureș the weekly ration of a forest worker, its cost kept back from his pay.^[3][2] A carol sung by the colindători ends with the wish „De la noi cu o colindă, De la domnul cu premândă” “from us a carol, from the master a payment in food”.^[6][3] In the Hațeg country a servant who gets his food month by month is said to be on premândă.^[12]

Other regional senses are the share of the alms and offerings due to the church singers, the food a person takes for the road or for work, the food cooked for a family for one day, bread or maize bread, and a harvest.^[2][3] Under the influence of prebendă it also meant a canon's income.^[3]

Timeline

• 1806 – first record, in Klein's dictionary.^[6]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it “income” and “ration in kind”.^[2][11]
• 1865 – Pisone glosses it “provisions”.^[13]
• 1915 – Densusianu records it in the Hațeg country.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated, Transylvania) A payment in food given to farm workers.^[2][3][14]
2. (regional) The weekly food ration of a forest worker.^[2][3]
3. (Transylvania) The share of alms and offerings due to the church singers.^[2][9]
4. (regional) Food taken along for a journey or for work.^[2][3]
5. (Transylvania) The food cooked for a family for one day.^[2]
6. (regional, as primândă) Bread or maize bread.^[2][3]
7. (regional) A harvest.^[2]
8. (Transylvania) The income of a canon, a prebend.^[2][3]

Related words

• prebendă

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 519
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. premândă
4. ^ a b c d Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 642
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. praebenda
6. ^ 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. premândă
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 216
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6708
9. ^ a b Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 656
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1039
11. ^ a b c 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.), p. 539
12. ^ a b Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 330
13. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 310
14. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. premândă