purica

Forms

purica (third-person singular present purică, past participle puricat, third-person subjunctive purice) 1st conjugation^[1] The older form is pureca, still used in Oltenia: „Am purecat și eu prunii” “I too picked the caterpillars off the plum trees”.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pūlicō (“to catch fleas”), from pūlex (“flea”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEX 2009 gives the Latin verb as probable.^[6] Ciorănescu cites Densusianu, Pușcariu and Candrea–Densusianu for this etymology, and lists the verb with purice “flea”, which comes from the Latin noun.^[7]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian puric.^[7][1] Ciorănescu and the REW compare Sardinian puligare, and Ciorănescu probably Italian piluccare and French éplucher too.^[7][5] Wiktionary sees only a chance likeness between the Romanian verb and the Vulgar Latin family of that Italian verb.^[1] De Vaan relates the Latin noun to the other Indo-European words for the flea, perhaps from *plus- with metathesis.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, a Romanian–Latin glossary that MDA2 dates c. 1650–1700 and Tiktin about 1670.^[4][2] The sense is “to rid of fleas”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The literal sense is to rid a person, an animal or clothes of fleas;^[3][2] Eminescu uses it of catching a single flea: „bietul «ins»! la ce să-l purec?” “poor fellow, why should I catch him?”.^[3][2] From going through a garment fold by fold came the figurative sense “to examine closely”: Caragiale's old-clothes women go through every fold of the clothes they buy, and Cezar Petrescu writes of family documents gone through again and again.^[3][9]

Other figurative senses are “to beat hard” and, in Oltenia, “to fleece someone of his money”.^[4][9] In north-eastern Oltenia pureca also means to pick caterpillars off fruit trees.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1650–1700 – purica in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[4][2]
• 1825 – the verb in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[3]
• 1862 – purica “to rid of fleas” in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[10]
• 1893–1895 – purica as a variant of pureca in Damé's dictionary.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (popular, familiar; also reflexive) To rid (oneself) of fleas.^[6][4][1]
2. (figurative, familiar) To scrutinize, examine in every detail.^[6][4][1]
3. (figurative) To beat hard.^[4][9]
4. (regional, form pureca) To pick caterpillars off fruit trees; to strip someone of his money by dishonest means.^[4]

Word family

• puricare

Related words

• purice
• Aromanian puric

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. purica
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. purica
4. ^ 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, 603
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6817
6. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 899
7. ^ a b c 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. purice
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. pulex
9. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 632
10. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 599
11. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. 2