rug

rug¹ bramble

Etymology tree of rug¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin rubus

Romanian rug

From the same root · rug¹

Latin rubeus ← rubus

Forms

rug m (plural rugi)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the bramble is inherited from Latin rubus (“bramble, blackberry bush”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin /b/ between vowels became /g/ here, as in neg and negură.^[2][1] The Latin noun is traced to Proto-Indo-European *wr̥dʰo- (“sweetbriar”).^[1]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian arug (also rug) and Megleno-Romanian rug.^[2][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Italian rovo, with a dialectal Italian form rogo, and Spanish rubo and Portuguese rubo.^[2][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Gospel book of 1561, where the word means a thorn bush: „Nu vei aduna amu de în spini smochine, nece de în rugi lua-veri struguri” “you will not gather figs from thorns nor grapes from brambles” (Luke 6:44).^[5][10] MDA2 dates its first record to 1564.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word meant any thorn bush, as in the story of Moses and the burning bush: „în focul rugului” “in the fire of the bush” in Dosoftei.^[5][10] The phrase rugul aprins “the burning bush” comes from Exodus 3:2.^[5] That general sense is now obsolete.^[3]

Later it named particular thorny shrubs of the rose family: the blackberry bush, the raspberry (in compounds such as rug de munte), the dog rose (măceș), and in some regions the garden rose.^[3][10] Regional senses go further: in Banat it is the black locust, and in Moldavia the climbing vine and its tendril.^[3] Glossaries of Hațeg and Maramureș record it for the blackberry and the dog rose.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 1561 – rugi “brambles” in Coresi's Gospel book, the first record.^[5]
• 1564 – first record according to MDA2, in a fragment of a deacon's prayer book.^[3]
• 1682–1686 – rugul “the bush” of Moses in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[5][10]
• 1688 – rug in the Bucharest Bible (Exodus 3:2).^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The creeping stem of certain plants.^[4]
2. The blackberry bush (mur).^[4][1]
3. The dog rose (măceș).^[4][1]
4. In the compounds rug-de-munte and rug-de-zmeură: the raspberry plant.^[4]
5. (obsolete) A thorn bush, a bramble.^[3][10]

Word family

• ruget

rug² pyre

Etymology tree of rug²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin rogus

Romanian rug

Forms

rug n (plural ruguri)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the pyre is borrowed from Latin rogus (“funeral pyre”), a learned loan of the 19th century shaped after rug¹ “bramble”.^{[4][3][14][1]} Ciorănescu rejects as wholly improbable the view, which he attributes to Candrea and Tiktin, that the word could be inherited.^[2][1] The Latin word is related to regō (“to erect, set up”).^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Mureșanu in 1862, where the dead are burnt on a pyre: „Unde legea lor prescrie Ca pre morți să-i ardă-n rog” “where their law prescribes that the dead be burnt on the pyre”, with the variant rog.^[14][10] Heliade-Rădulescu wrote „Condamnară pe Gallileu la rug” “they condemned Galileo to the stake”.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

The word names the heap of wood on which sacrifices or the dead were burnt in antiquity and the condemned in the Middle Ages.^[4][10] Eminescu used it figuratively: „Pe-al meu propriu rug mă topesc în flăcări” “on my own pyre I melt in flames”.^[14][10] In the Moldovan usage recorded by NODEX it is also a fire lit for a solemn occasion.^[16]

Timeline

• 1862 – rog “pyre” in Mureșanu's poems, the first record.^[14][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pyre: a heap of wood on which sacrifices or the dead were burnt in antiquity, and the condemned in the Middle Ages.^[4][1]
2. A bonfire lit for a solemn occasion.^[16]