scroafă

Forms

scroafă f (plural scroafe)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin scrōfa (“sow”).^[2][3][4][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian scrofa, Romansh scrua and Friulian scrove.^[5][2] Ciorănescu also compares Modern Greek σκρόφα (skrófa).^[2]

In Latin it was a rustic, dialectal word, recorded from Plautus on.^[6][7] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *skrofā “scratcher, digger”, from Proto-Indo-European *skrobʰ-h₂-, related to scrobis (“ditch”), and rejects the old idea of a loan from Ancient Greek γρομφάς (grompʰás, “old sow”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1439, citing Drăganu.^[4] In a Romanian text it first appears in Moxa's chronicle of 1620, in the sense “sow”.^[3][8] The Bible of 1688 has the proverb „În ce chip este cercelul de aur în nasul scroafei, așa la femeia îndărătnică frumusețea” “as a gold ring in a sow's nose, so is beauty in a stubborn woman” (Proverbs 11:22).^[4][9]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the Latin sense, the female pig, and is also used of the wild sow.^[10][8] Like Italian scrofa, which has meant a woman of bad morals since the 15th century, it became an insult for a coarse, shameless woman.^[10][11][6] A billiard shot that hits by luck, a slang sense “safe, strongbox” and a regional sense “double bass” in Maramureș are later transfers.^[10][2][12]

Compounds name animals and stars: scroafă-de-baltă is the little bittern, and Scroafa-cu-Purcei a northern constellation.^[10][13] The idiom s-a suit scroafa în copac “the sow has climbed the tree” mocks a conceited upstart.^[10][3]

Timeline

• 1439 – Tiktin's first record, cited from Drăganu.^[4]
• 1620 – scroafă “sow” in Moxa's chronicle.^[3][8]
• 1673 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible (Proverbs 11:22).^[9]
• 1706 – Scroafă as a personal name in Moldavia.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. sow: the female of the pig, or of the wild boar.^[10][1]
2. (pejorative) A coarse, shameless woman.^[10][11]
3. (billiards) A badly played shot that hits by luck.^[10]
4. (slang) A safe, a cash box.^[2]
5. (regional, Maramureș) A double bass.^[12]

Word family

• scrofiță

Related words

• purcel
• porc

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. scroafă
3. ^ 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, 827
4. ^ 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. scroafă
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7748
6. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. scroafă
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Proverbs 11:22
10. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 994
11. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. scroafă
12. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. scroáfă
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. scroafă
14. ^ 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. scroafă
15. ^ Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. scroafă