rânced

Forms

rânced m or n (feminine singular râncedă, masculine plural râncezi, feminine/neuter plural râncede)^[1] Old texts have rănced: Nicolae Costin, quoted in Gaster's chrestomathy, speaks of „cașcavali care sânt răncezi” “cheeses that are rancid”.^[2][3] Regional forms are râncid and râncit.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rancidus (“stinking, rotten”), formed on ranceō (“to be rotten”).^{[5][6][3][2][7]} Its Romance cognates include Sicilian ráncitu, Sardinian rankidu, French rance, Spanish rancio and Portuguese rancio.^[5][8] The REW suggests that outside Romanian these may all be learned words.^[8] Ciorănescu notes that the word is little used in Moldavia, Bukovina and Bessarabia.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1703.^[4] MDA2's first record is Nicolae Costin's text quoted in Gaster's chrestomathy, where mice have gnawed the cheese and the cașcaval is rancid.^[3][2] In Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică (1705) the adjective is already figurative: „vechia și rânceda pizmăluire” “the old and rancid envy”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The adjective is used of fats and fatty foods, such as butter, bacon, lard and oil, that have spoiled in the air, and of their taste and smell; by extension of any unpleasant taste or smell.^[6][3][9] Budai-Deleanu's Țiganiada has clise râncede “rancid bacon”.^[2] Regionally mere râncede are apples whose flesh turns glassy as they ripen.^[3]

Timeline

• 1703 – first record.^[4]
• 1705 – the figurative rânceda pizmăluire in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[4]
• 1801 – rânced in Klein's dictionary.^[10]
• 1822 – the verb râncezi “to go rancid”.^[3]
• 1825 – rânced “rancid” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of fats and fatty foods: rancid, having an unpleasant taste and smell through partial spoiling; râncezit.^[6][3]
2. Of taste or smell: typical of spoiled fats; unpleasant.^[6][3]
3. (regional, in mere râncede) Of apples: with flesh that turns glassy on ripening.^[3]

Word family

• râncezi
• râncezeală

Related words

• Latin rancidus

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. rânced
3. ^ 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, 656
4. ^ 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. rânced
5. ^ 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. rânced
6. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 922
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7040
9. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
10. ^ 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. 429
11. ^ 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. 574