pupa

Forms

pupa (third-person singular present pupă, past participle pupat, third-person subjunctive pupe), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

In DEX, MDA2 and the DLR it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *puppō (“to suck”), a verb from *puppa (“teat, breast”).^[2][3][4][1] Pușcariu proposed this etymon in 1905, and Candrea and Densusianu compare Italian poppare, Old French pouper and Catalan popar, all meaning “to suck”.^[5][6] Wiktionary traces the Latin noun to pūpa.^[1]

Ciorănescu finds the Latin derivation improbable and takes the verb as a childish, familiar derivative from Romanian pup, itself an expressive word.^[5] Tiktin calls it a sound word of children's speech, formed in the same way as the Romance word for “teat”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Pravila of Govora of 1640, the only old text Tiktin knows with the word, where its use beside a săruta stands out: a man „nice să-l sărute, nice să-l pupe” “should neither kiss it nor peck it”.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

The verb is familiar and belongs especially to children's speech.^[7][2] It forms many phrases: a pupa în bot “to fawn on”, a se pupa în bot cu cineva “to be very thick with someone”, and in curses să-l pupe mă-sa rece “may his mother kiss him cold”.^[2][3] Colloquially, mostly with a negative, it means getting something one wants: Tiktin quotes nu pupi ăle două sute de lei “you won't see those two hundred lei”.^[7][2]

Its derivatives include the nouns pupat and pupătură “kiss” and the adjective pupăcios “fond of kissing”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1640 – să-l pupe in the Pravila of Govora, the first record.^[7][3]
• 1905 – Pușcariu derives the verb from Latin *puppare.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (familiar, transitive and reciprocal) to kiss.^[2][3][1]
2. (familiar, mostly negative) to get something one wants: Nu mai pupi tu concediu. “You can forget about a holiday.”^[2][1]
3. (colloquial, reciprocal) to match, go well together.^[1]

Word family

• pupăcios

Related words

• pup

Usage notes

The nouns pupă “stern of a ship”, from French poupe, and pupă “pupa of an insect”, from Latin pupa, are separate words.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 899
3. ^ 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, 601
4. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pupa
5. ^ 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. pup
6. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
7. ^ 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. pupa