rufă

Forms

rufă f (plural rufe)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic роухо (ruxo, “garment; belongings”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Slavonic word comes from Proto-Slavic *ruxo.^[1] Its relatives include Bulgarian рухо (ruho, “clothing”), Serbo-Croatian ruho, Czech roucho and Polish rucho.^[2][6][7] Vasmer and Wiktionary connect it with the verb *rušiti (“to move”): clothing was portable property.^[6][1]

Ciorănescu also compares Modern Greek ρούχο (roúcho, “clothing”), which is itself a Slavic loan.^[2][1] The Lexicon of Buda of 1825 explained the word from the colour of linen before washing, a view of its time.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the sources is rufa in a psalter of 1589, at Psalm 101:27, where the heavens grow old like a garment.^[9] Tiktin's first record is a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of about 1660, where rufe glosses Slavonic рубище “rags”.^[5][10] MDA2 dates it before 1702, in a rule that linen should not be washed together with other clothes.^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

From “garment” the word narrowed to body and bed linen, and in the plural to the laundry: Klein's dictionary of 1801 glosses it as soiled linen.^[12][11] In Moldavia and Bukovina it also means a rag, a piece of old cloth.^[5][2]

Two expressions are common: a-și usca rufele la același soare cu cineva “to dry one's linen in the same sun as someone”, to be intimate with someone or to share interests, and rufele murdare se spală în familie “dirty linen is washed at home”.^[3][4] Slang uses rufă disparagingly for a prostitute.^[13] Ciorănescu notes the derivatives rufărie “linen” and the Moldavian rufos “ragged” and rufană “rag”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1589 – rufa in a psalter, Psalm 101:27.^[9]
• c. 1660 – rufe in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[5][10]
• before 1702 – the sense “linen” in a church rule.^[3][11]
• 1801 – “soiled linen” in Klein's dictionary.^[12]
• 1825 – “change of linen” and “dirty washing” in the Lexicon of Buda.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A piece of body or bed linen: shirts, underwear, sheets, tablecloths; in the plural, the laundry: a spăla rufele “to do the washing”.^[4][3]
2. (regional, plural) Clothes.^[3]
3. (regional) A rag, a piece of old cloth.^[4][3]

Word family

• rufărie
• rufos

Related words

• haină
• Bulgarian рухо (ruho)

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. rufă
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 733
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 966
5. ^ 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. rúfă
6. ^ a b Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress, p. 3, 524
7. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 6, 355
8. ^ a b 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. 596
9. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 101:27
10. ^ a b 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. rufe
11. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. rufă
12. ^ a b 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. 434
13. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. rufă