râncheza

Forms

râncheza (third-person singular present rânchează, past participle rânchezat) 1st conjugation^[1] Regional forms include rincheza, renchezi, răghezi and rânteza.^[2] Budai-Deleanu's horse „sare și rintează” “leaps and neighs”.^[3]

Etymology

DEX 2009, MDA2, DLR and the REW give it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *rhonchizō (“to snore”);^[4][2][3][5] Wiktionary compares Old Italian roncheggiare and derives the Latin verb from rhonchō (“to snore”), formed on rhonchus (“snoring”), from Ancient Greek ῥόγχος (rhónkhos).^[1][6] DEX and DLR explain the vowel through the influence of necheza.^[4][3]

Ciorănescu takes it instead as an expressive creation, comparing Ancient Greek ῥογχίζω (rhonkhízō, “to snore”), the Latin verb, Spanish roncar and Old Church Slavonic рѫкати (rǫkati, “to roar”); he finds a derivation from Greek, direct or through the Latin verb, less probable.^[7] In his view an assimilation gave nincheza and a dissimilation then gave the standard verb.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and DLR give as the first record Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică (1704), where a stallion, „tare nechezând și rânchezând” “neighing and whinnying loudly”, charges the wolf without fear.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The verb has kept its sense, the neighing of horses, and is used by extension of other animals that make a similar sound, and disparagingly of people who laugh with a neighing sound.^[2][4] The Alexandria of 1794 has a horse that „răncheză încetinel” “neighs softly”.^[3] Șăineanu labels it Moldavian, and Wiktionary calls it rare.^[8][1]

Timeline

• 1704 – first record, in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[2][3]
• 1794 – răncheză in the Alexandria.^[3]
• 1820 – the noun rânchezătură in Beldiman's Numa Pompilius.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, of horses) To neigh; necheza.^[4][2]
2. (intransitive, of other animals) To make a sound like a horse's neigh.^[2]
3. (intransitive, of people, disparaging) To laugh with a neighing sound; to guffaw.^[2]

Word family

• rânchezătură
• rânchezat

Related words

• necheza

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 656
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. râncheza
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 922
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7293
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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. râncheza
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 531
9. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 657