sarică

Forms

sarică f (plural sarici)^[1] The old variant sarecă is in Varlaam's Cazania (1643), of John the Baptist: „Cu sarecă de păr de cămilă îmbrăcat” “clad in a sarecă of camel's hair”.^[2][3] Dosoftei uses it for Elijah's mantle: „Elisei ... cu sareca lui Ilie apa Iordanului trecu neudat” “Elisha crossed the water of the Jordan dry with Elijah's mantle”.^[2][4] Scriban gives the stress sárică for Muntenia, Transylvania and Oltenia and sarícă for Moldavia and parts of Transylvania; besides sarici there are plurals sărici and sarice.^[5][3][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin sarica, a Late Latin form of sērica (“silk garments”).^{[7][2][3][4][8][1][9][10]} Tiktin cites the Medieval Latin forms sareca, saraca and sarca.^[4] Scriban explains the Latin word as the neuter plural of sēricus (“silken”), taken as a feminine; the adjective is named after the Sērēs (“Seres”), the Chinese.^[5][1]

It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian saricã.^[7][11][12] DER compares Old French sarge, Spanish sarga, Modern Greek σάρικα (sárika) and Albanian sarkë, and rejects Diculescu's derivation from a Doric Greek form.^[7] Ungureanu, who cites the Latin form in a charter from Ravenna of 564, calls the Latin word of unknown origin and not related to the word for silk.^[13] From Romanian it passed into Hungarian szárika.^[7][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from about 1529, in the Slavonic–Romanian documents.^[4] The first Romanian text is Varlaam's Cazania of 1643, with the form sarecă for John the Baptist's camel-hair garment.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word names the long peasant cloak, shaggy on the outside and woven of thick woollen yarn, that mountain people and above all shepherds wear against rain and frost.^[8][3][4] By extension it is the cloth the cloak is made of, and regionally a short coat.^[3][6] In the 19th century Heliade wrote of a sarica dacă “Dacian sarică” that the Romans in Dacia put on against the cold.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1529 – the first record, in the Slavonic–Romanian documents.^[4]
• 1643 – sarecă in Varlaam's Cazania.^[3][2]
• 1682–1686 – sareca lui Ilie “Elijah's mantle” in Dosoftei's Viața și petrecerea sfinților.^[2][4]
• 1754 – o sarica in a list of goods.^[2]
• 1850 – sarică in a document on the fulling mills of Lopătari and Mănești.^[2]
• 1870 – a thick coat for rain and frost worn by peasants on the road, in Costinescu's dictionary.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long shaggy peasant cloak woven of thick woollen yarn, worn by mountain people, especially shepherds.^[8][3][1]
2. (by extension) The cloth such a cloak is made of; compare suman.^[3][2]
3. (regional) A short coat.^[6]

Related words

• Aromanian saricã
• suman

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sarică
3. ^ 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, 759
4. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sarică
5. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1156
6. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 14
7. ^ a b c d 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. sarică
8. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 976
9. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 1525
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7848
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 915
12. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 151
13. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 356
14. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 469