roșu

Forms

roșu m or n (feminine singular roșie, plural roșii)^[1] MDA2 records the regional form roș, the old form roșiu and the Transylvanian roșou, and a rare plural roșuri for the noun.^[2]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Latin russus (“red”), the source Ciorănescu and Tiktin prefer.^[3][4][1] Pușcariu, the REW and Candrea derived it instead from roseus (“rose-coloured”), and MDA2 gives that etymon too.^[3][5][2] Ciorănescu finds both sound developments regular, compared with coș for the first and caș for the second, and sides with the first because it means the same.^[3] Tiktin points to the wide spread of the Latin word in the other Romance languages.^[4]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian aroș, Megleno-Romanian roș and Istro-Romanian roiș.^[3][6][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian rosso, Sardinian ruju, French roux, Spanish rojo and Portuguese roxo.^[3]

Romanian lent the word to its neighbours: Ukrainian роша (roša) names a reddish goat, and Hungarian rós and róska come from it too.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1465, from DLRV.^[4] In Romanian texts MDA2 dates it to Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581.^[2] The Palia de la Orăștie (1581–1582) has the Red Sea in a gloss to Exodus: „Moisi desparte Marea Roșie” “Moses parts the Red Sea”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is the colour of blood; from it come “ruddy, reddish-haired”, “flushed in the face” and, for metals, “red-hot”.^[9][3] Older Romanian also used the word for copper, and in 16th- and 17th-century Wallachia it named a soldier of a cavalry corps, which DER links with roșior “hussar”.^[3]

About 1880 it became a party label, “liberal”, opposed to alb “conservative”; later it came to mean “communist”.^[4][3][9] The noun roșie “tomato” is short for pătlăgică roșie “red aubergine”.^[3] Slang used it for “gold”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1465 – the first record Tiktin gives, from DLRV.^[4]
• 1581 – first record in a Romanian text, Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[2]
• 1581–1582 – „Marea Roșie” “the Red Sea” in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[4]
• 1649 – roșie in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – roșu many times in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• about 1880 – used as a political label for the liberals.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. red: of the colour of blood;^[9][1] ouă roșii are the dyed eggs of Easter.^[9][1]
2. ruddy, reddish, auburn (of hair).^[9][3]
3. Flushed in the face; of the eyes, bloodshot.^[9]
4. Of metals, red-hot.^[9][3]
5. (figurative) communist.^[9][3]

Noun

1. The colour red, one of the basic colours of the spectrum; red paint or dye.^[9]
2. rouge, make-up.^[3]
3. Hearts in a pack of cards.^[3]

Word family

• roși
• înroși
• roșeală
• roșeață
• roșcă
• roșcovan
• roșie
• roșcat
• roșiatic
• roșior

Related words

• Aromanian aroș
• Latin russus

Usage notes

A vedea roșu (înaintea ochilor) “to see red” means to fly into a rage.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 727
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. roșu
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. roșu
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7378
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 150
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 251
8. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 963
10. ^ 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. roșie
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ieșirea 26:1