pușcă

Forms

pușcă f (plural puști)^[1] Old texts have the plurals puște, pușce and pusci beside puști: Neculce counts „puște mari patru sute, tot tunuri mari” “four hundred great guns, all of them big cannons”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Hungarian puska (“gun”) according to MDA2 and the DLR.^[3][4] Tamás also sees Hungarian as the main channel, with possible Polish mediation at the same time, and derives the old pușcaș “gunner” from puskás (“shooter”) as well.^[5] DEX names Polish puszka and Russian пушка (puška) beside the Hungarian word,^[6] and Wiktionary gives Hungarian or Polish, both from Czech puška.^[1] Ciorănescu, following Miklosich, and Scriban take it instead from Old Church Slavonic пѹшька (pušĭka), and Tiktin calls it a Slavic word found in all the neighbouring languages.^[7][8][2]

The word travelled across Central and Eastern Europe from German, where it first meant “box”.^[9] TESz derives the Hungarian word from Middle High German bühse (“box; firearm”);^[10] Wiktionary traces it through Old High German būhse to Latin pyxis (“small box”), which is from Ancient Greek πυξίς (puxís, “box of boxwood”).^[1][11] The same word is Bulgarian пушка (puška), Serbo-Croatian puška and Albanian pushkë;^[7][12] the Albanian word probably comes from Serbo-Croatian.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1605; in the old language the word meant a piece of artillery, a cannon.^[2] MDA2 dates it to Moxa's chronicle of 1620, where the plural puscile “the cannons” scatter the enemy far away.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

In the old language, especially in Moldavia, a pușcă was a cannon.^[2][13] The gunners who served it were pușcași, recorded from 1633.^[14] The sense moved to the portable firearm, first the flintlock and then the modern rifle; the old cannon sense is now obsolete.^[3][6] In Hungarian the firearm sense is recorded from 1443, after the older “box, money box” of 1430.^[10] Neculce's puște de apă were fire pumps used by the Cossacks to put out a fire.^[2]

Adverbial phrases grew from the image of the shot: a se duce pușcă and ca din pușcă mean “to go like a shot”, and gol pușcă is “stark naked”, also “penniless”.^[2][6] Graur explained gol pușcă as “naked as a gun”, a gun having no covering, and noted a similar Bulgarian expression.^[15] Regional senses include a slingshot (Banat, Moldavia), the iron bushing of a wheel hub (Transylvania) and a cheat sheet in slang, and several plants are named after the word.^[3]

Timeline

• 1443 – Hungarian puska in the sense “firearm”.^[10]
• 1605 – pușcă “cannon” in a document, the first Romanian record.^[2]
• 1620 – the plural puscile in Moxa's chronicle.^[3][4]
• 1631 – the derivative pușcărie, first “artillery”, later “prison”.^[16]
• 1633 – pușcaș “gunner”.^[14]
• c. 1670 – the diminutive pușculiță, later “money box”.^[17]
• c. 1700 – the verb împușca “to shoot”.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A portable firearm with a wooden stock and a long barrel; a rifle or gun: pușcă de vânătoare “hunting gun”, pușcă-mitralieră “automatic rifle”.^[6][19][1]
2. (adverbial, in phrases) gol pușcă “stark naked; penniless”;^[20] a trece pușcă “to rush past like a shot”.^[6][3]
3. (obsolete) A cannon.^[6][2]
4. (botany, in the compound) pușca-dracului, a herb with usually blue flowers (Phyteuma tetramerum).^[6][3]

Word family

• împușca
• pușcar
• pușcaș
• pușcoci
• pușcărie
• pușcăriaș
• pușcuță
• pușculiță

Usage notes

The plural is puști.^[6] The phrase a da cu pușca-n Dumnezeu “to fear nothing” is colloquial.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pușcă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 607
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pușcă
5. ^ a b Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 650
6. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 901
7. ^ 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. pușcă
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1079
9. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
10. ^ a b c Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 315
11. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 6, 20
13. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 526
14. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pușcaș
15. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1975), Alte etimologii românești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. pușcă
16. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pușcărie
17. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pușculiță
18. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. împușca
19. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 637
20. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 130