puroi

Forms

puroi n (plural puroaie)^[1] Moldavian punoi (feminine punoaie) is the form of Dosoftei: „izvorând din bube punoaie împuțite” “oozing stinking pus from his sores”.^[2][3] A feminine puroaie occurs too: „Puroaia cea bună este albă galbenă la față” “good pus is yellowish white in colour”.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *pūrōnium, formed on Latin pūs (“pus”), the view of Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu, Tiktin and Rosetti;^[4][3][2] Ciorănescu, who reports it, still calls the origin obscure.^[4][3][2] The DLR, MDA2, DEX and Wiktionary give the same etymon.^[5][6][7][1] Wiktionary also allows a Romanian formation with the suffix -oi on a stem ⟨pur-⟩.^[1] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *púH-os (“pus”).^[1][8]

Aromanian pronjiu is the same word.^[1][9] Ciorănescu thinks a Slavic word may have affected the sound of the Romanian form, Old Church Slavonic рои (roi, “swarm”), compare Bulgarian порой (poroj, “torrent”).^[4][10][11] The Moldavian punoi came either by assimilation of /r…n/ to /n…n/ or under the influence of gunoi.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a text of about 1550 published in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni, which threatens that foul matter and pus will run from the eyes of others; the sense is “pus”.^[6][5][2]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense “pus” from the first record to the present, and the DLR's quotations show it in the old medical and religious texts.^[5] Ciorănescu notes that it is old and in general use across the language.^[4] Regionally, in Transylvania and Maramureș, it names the first milk of a cow after calving, and, in the form punoi, the milky juice of unripe maize; maize în puroi has milky kernels, just right for boiling.^[6] The adjective puroios and the verb puroia were formed on it.^[4][3]

Timeline

• c. 1550 – puroi “pus” in a text published by Hasdeu, the first record.^[6][2]
• 1581 – „plin de puroi” “full of pus”.^[5]
• 1649 – puroi glossing Slavonic гной “pus” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – puroi in the Bucharest Bible (Job 7:5).^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. pus, the thick yellowish-green matter formed in wounds and inflamed tissue.^[7][1]
2. (regional, Transylvania, Maramureș) colostrum.^[6]
3. (regional, as punoi) The milky juice of unripe maize kernels.^[6]

Word family

• puroios

Related words

• Aromanian pronjiu
• Latin pūs

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. puroi
3. ^ a b c d e Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. puroi
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. puroi
6. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 604
7. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 900
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 883
10. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 6, 310
11. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 5, 531
12. ^ 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. puroi
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Iov 7:5