săpun

Forms

săpun n (plural săpunuri)^[1] The Moldavian form sopon appears in a document of 1743: „sopon rău de casă” “poor household soap”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is most likely inherited from Latin sāpō (“soap”), as Pușcariu, the REW, MDA2, the DLR and Ciorănescu take it.^{[4][5][2][6][1]} Other routes have been proposed: Densusianu took it from Old Church Slavonic сапѹнъ (sapunŭ), Candrea from Modern Greek σαπούνι (sapoúni), and Tiktin, who allows an indirect borrowing, from Italian sapone.^[4][3] DEX compares both the Latin and the Greek word.^[7] Ciorănescu judges the direct Latin descent probable, though the word's presence in all the Balkan languages makes the routes hard to tell apart;^[8][9] Domaschke called it a Balkan word.^[4]

It is found south of the Danube as Aromanian sãpuni and Megleno-Romanian săpun; the form Istro-Romanian sapun is from Croatian.^[4][8][9] The Latin word is a loan from Proto-Germanic *saipǭ.^[1] The western variant ⟨săpon⟩ and the Moldavian ⟨sopon⟩ reflect Hungarian szappan, according to Ciorănescu (after Gáldi) and Scriban.^[4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Coresi's psalter of 1570, in Psalm 50:8.^[11] Tiktin cites the same verse in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3] MDA2's first record is the Anonymus Caransebesiensis of the mid-17th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense “soap”, for the body and for washing clothes.^[2][7] Documents of the 18th century record it often, as sopon or săpun; the săpun de Veneția “Venetian soap” is recorded in 1814.^[2] Modern dictionaries also define it chemically, as a salt of a fatty acid.^[5][12]

Idioms include a rade (pe cineva) fără săpun “to give someone a dressing-down”.^[7] Plant names use it: săpunul calului and săpunul popii name the soapwort.^[3][5] Săpun de pământ is a fine clay that lathers in water and was used to clean wool.^[5]

Timeline

• 1570 – săpun in Coresi's psalter (Psalm 50:8), the first record.^[11]
• c. 1650 – săpun in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[5][2]
• 1688 – săpun and săpunurile in the Bucharest Bible (Esther 2:3, 2:12).^[13]
• 1743 – sopon rău de casă “poor household soap” in a document.^[2]
• 1814 – săpun de Veneția “Venetian soap”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. soap: a product made by treating fats or fatty acids with sodium or potassium hydroxide, used to wash the body and clothes; a bar of it.^[7][5]
2. (plural) Kinds of soap.^[7]
3. lather made with soap.^[7][5]
4. (chemistry) A metal salt of a fatty acid.^[5][12]

Word family

• săpunar
• săpunărie
• săpuni
• săpuneală
• săpunel
• săpunariță
• săpunos

Related words

• Latin sāpō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. săpun
3. ^ 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. săpun
4. ^ 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. săpun
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 775
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7589
7. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 980
8. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 897
9. ^ a b Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 333
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1161
11. ^ 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 50:8
12. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 27
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Esther 2:3