purcea

Forms

purcea f (plural purcele, masculine equivalent purcel)^[1] A variant purcică, with a change of suffix, is the Moldavian form.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin porcella (“female piglet”), the feminine of porcellus (“piglet”), a diminutive of porcus (“pig”).^{[4][5][2][3][1]} The REW lists it with Italian porcella beside the masculine purcel.^[6] Ciorănescu treats it as a Romanian derivative of the masculine.^[7]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian purtseauã.^[8][9][1] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pórḱos, originally a “digger”.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Klein's dictionary of 1801, which glosses it with Latin porcella.^[11] MDA2 dates it to the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825.^[4] The masculine purcel is recorded much earlier, from 1479.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word means a female piglet and, by extension, a young sow.^[5][2] In Muntenia and Oltenia purcea mistreață or purcea sălbatică is a young female wild boar.^[4][2] In Transylvania the word also names the biceps.^[4]

With the article, purceaua is a children's game in which one player drives a ball, a bone or a block with a stick towards a hole in the middle of a circle while the others try to stop it; the word also names the ball used.^[5][4] In slang purcea is a bar or counter, and in old thieves' cant a cash box.^[12][7]

Timeline

• 1801 – purcea in Klein's dictionary.^[11]
• 1825 – purcea “young female pig” in the Lexicon de la Buda, with the diminutives purceluță and purcelușă.^[13][4]
• 1862 – purcea “sow” in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A female piglet; by extension a young sow.^[5][4][1]
2. (regional) purcea mistreață or sălbatică: a young female wild boar.^[4][2]
3. (with the article) purceaua: a children's game in which a ball or bone is driven with a stick towards a hole; the ball used in it.^[5][4]
4. (Transylvania) The biceps.^[4]
5. (slang) A bar or counter;^[12] (thieves' cant, dated) a cash box.^[12]

Word family

• purcelușă

Related words

• purcel
• porc
• Aromanian purtseauã

Usage notes

The idiom a lua purceaua de coadă (or de nas), “to take the young sow by the tail (or nose)”, means “to get drunk”.^[5][15] The plural is purcele.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. purcea
3. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. purcel
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 602
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6660
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. purcel
8. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 146
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 871
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. porcus
11. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 427
12. ^ a b c Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. purcea
13. ^ 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. 562
14. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 598
15. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 525