purice

Forms

purice m (plural purici)^[1] Older and western forms are purece and purec;^[2][3] puric is northern and Moldavian.^[4][2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pūlicem (“flea”), the accusative of the Latin noun.^{[4][1][3][5][6]} It survives in all four branches: Aromanian puric, Megleno-Romanian puric and Istro-Romanian purec.^[4][7][8][9] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian pulko, Italian pulce, French puce, Catalan pussa, Spanish pulga and Portuguese pulga.^[4][6]

The Latin word belongs with the other Indo-European names of the flea, such as Ancient Greek ψύλλα (psúlla), Lithuanian blusà and Old English flēah, but these cannot be traced to one common form; de Vaan explains the Latin stem as a metathesis of Proto-Indo-European *plus- (“flea”), and names of insects are often distorted by taboo.^[10][1] The verb purica “to rid of fleas” continues pūlicō.^[4][11] Ciorănescu, after Candrea–Densusianu, says that Romanian lent Hungarian purecsa.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1439, in the Moldavian documents.^[12] In a Romanian text MDA2 first cites it from Dosoftei, whose Joel has „lăcusta și cărăbușii și purecii și omida” “the locust and the beetles and the fleas and the caterpillar” (Joel 2:25).^[3][12]

Semantic evolution

The core sense, the flea that lives on people, widened to related biting insects of animals and to small jumping pests of plants, the flea beetles; the water flea is purice-de-apă.^[13][14] The insect's small size gave the word to small objects: tacks with large heads hammered into soles or used in upholstery, and specks in unbleached cotton cloth.^[13][4][2] Ciorănescu also records a ball game and a suit on playing cards.^[4]

The flea's restlessness is behind a nu face purici mulți “not to stay long somewhere”, already used by Creangă, and fear makes one's heart cât un purice “as small as a flea”.^[12][13] In tales, de când se potcovea puricele “since the flea was shod” means long ago or never.^[13] The Aromanian proverb that the miser would get tallow out of a flea shows a similar use south of the Danube.^[7]

Timeline

• 1439 – the first record, in a Moldavian document.^[12]
• 1660 – purece glossing Slavonic блоха “flea” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1688 – purece in the Bucharest Bible (1 Kings 24:15).^[16]
• 1705 – purecele in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A flea, a small, wingless, dark brown insect with legs adapted for jumping, which feeds on the blood of people and animals (Pulex irritans).^[13][1]
2. A flea beetle, one of the small insects that damage cabbages, flax and clover (Haltica); purice-de-apă is the water flea.^[13]
3. (plural) Small tacks with a broad head, used in upholstery and shoemaking.^[13][2]
4. (plural) Dark specks in unbleached cotton cloth.^[13]

Word family

• purica
• puricariță
• puricel
• puricos

Usage notes

Common phrases: a i se face inima cât un purice “to be scared stiff” and a nu face (mulți) purici “not to stay long”.^[13][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1078
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, 603
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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
5. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 1408
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6816
7. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 896
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 241
9. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6817
12. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. purice
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 899
14. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. purice
15. ^ 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. purece
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 1 Kings 24:15