prună

Forms

prună f (plural prune)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *prūna (“plum”), the neuter plural of Latin prūnum (“plum”) taken as a feminine singular.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of prun “plum tree”, but allows that it may come straight from the Latin plural.^[6] The Latin noun is a loan from Ancient Greek προῦμνον (proûmnon, “plum”), which Wiktionary takes from a language of Asia Minor.^[7][1]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian prunã and Megleno-Romanian prună.^[6][1] Romance cognates include Italian pruna, Sardinian pruna, French prune and Catalan pruna.^[8][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the word to about 1660, from a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon in which prune renders a Slavonic word for plums.^[3][9] MDA2 cites the Latin–Romanian glossary of Caransebeș (c. 1650–1700).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word names the fruit of the plum tree;^[2] Scriban notes that in the west of the country it names plums in general, in the east a kind of fleshy plum.^[2] Its regional synonyms include perjă and poamă.^[4] Plums are distilled into țuică and rachiu, as an 1878 textbook says.^[3]

Familiar phrases are a vorbi cu pruna în gură “to mumble”, a fi cu pruna în gură “to be a fool” and a nu fi nici de zeama prunelor “to be good for nothing”.^[4][3] Scriban and Ciorănescu say that a Ukrainian word for plums was borrowed from Romanian.^[2][6]

Timeline

• c. 1660 – prune “plums” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, the first record.^[3][9]
• c. 1650–1700 – in the Latin–Romanian glossary of Caransebeș.^[4]
• 1825 – prună with Latin prunum and Hungarian szilva in the Lexicon of Buda.^[10]
• 1878 – a textbook says plums are made into țuică and rachiu.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. plum: the fruit of the prun, a drupe with a large stone, usually purple or yellowish.^[5][1]
2. parcă are prune în gură “as if he had plums in his mouth”: said of someone who speaks indistinctly.^[5]

Related words

• prun

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1070
3. ^ 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. prúnă
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 582
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 891
6. ^ 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. prun
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6798
9. ^ 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. prune
10. ^ 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. 556