pușcărie

Forms

pușcărie f (plural pușcării)^[1] MDA2 records an old variant pușcherie.^[2] The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) spells it Pušcảrie and glosses it with Latin carcer, Hungarian tömlöc and German Kerker.^[3]

Etymology

It is a Romanian formation on pușcă (“gun”).^[2][4] DEX, DLRLV and Wiktionary make it from Romanian pușcar + -ie, from the old word pușcar, which meant a gunner.^[5][6][1] MDA2 and the DLR derive the old sense of artillery in this way, but the sense of prison directly from the noun for gun with the suffix -ărie.^[2][7] The word for gunner is itself formed with the suffix -ar.^[2][8]

The base first meant a cannon.^[2][9] MDA2 takes it from Hungarian puska;^[2] DEX names Hungarian, Polish and Russian, and Ciorănescu Slavonic.^[5][9]

Tiktin thinks it first meant an arsenal.^[4] Scriban says that the old artillery barracks in Bucharest probably held a prison too, and Șăineanu traces the sense from artillery to the gunners' barracks and then to a prison guarded by riflemen.^[10][11] Cihac in 1879 explained it once as a place where guns were made or stored, and once, under pustiu (“desert”), as an altered derivative of that word: a prison would be a place where one is alone as in a desert.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1631, in a Wallachian document in the Documenta Romaniae Historica.^[4] MDA2 and the DLR first quote the sense “prison” from a document of about 1650 published by Iorga: a man who stayed in debt was put in pușcărie.^[2][7] The Romanian translation of the Teachings of Neagoe Basarab speaks of the righteous locked in pușcăriile iadului “the prisons of hell”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The chronicle of Nicolae Costin uses the word for the artillery, glossing artilerie with it: „Artilerie, adecă pușcărie” “artillery, that is, pușcărie”.^[7][6] The sense “prison” was the one that lasted.^[5][4] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons give it as the equivalent of Slavonic temnica “prison”, and Antim Ivireanu used it in his sermons.^[13][7]

The DLR quotes the word for a prison from the 17th century to the 20th: in the law code of Caragea a thief is to be shut up in the pușcărie for a year, and Bălcescu, Ghica, Alecsandri and Ispirescu use it.^[7] By extension it also means the time spent in prison, and in old usage the punishment of imprisonment itself.^[2][7] Scriban labels the prison sense familiar, beside închisoare, arest, gros and temniță.^[10]

Timeline

• 1631 – the first record, in a Wallachian document.^[4]
• c. 1650 – pușcărie “prison” in a document published by Iorga.^[2][7]
• c. 1650 – pușcăriile iadului “the prisons of hell” in the Romanian Teachings of Neagoe Basarab.^[4]
• 1664 – the equivalent of Slavonic temnica “prison” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon (Lex.Pet.).^[13]
• 1775 – închisoarea pușcăriii “imprisonment in the jail” in a document of that year.^[7]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda, glossed “jail”.^[3]
• 1870 – Costinescu defines it as a prison for criminals.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A prison: the building where people under arrest are held before trial or serve their sentence; închisoare, penitenciar, temniță.^[5][2][15]
2. The time spent in prison: A făcut doi ani de pușcărie.^[2][7]
3. (obsolete) Imprisonment as a punishment.^[2]
4. (obsolete) The artillery.^[2][7][6]

Related words

• pușcă
• pușcar
• pușcaș

Usage notes

MDA2 records a regional phrase, a fi pușcărie (de fum), said of a place full of smoke.^[2]

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, 607
3. ^ a b 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. 564
4. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pușcăríe
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 901
6. ^ a b c Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 245
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pușcărie
8. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pușcar
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1079
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 526
12. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 300
13. ^ 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. pușcărie
14. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 385
15. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. pușcărie