soage

Forms

soage (third-person singular present soage or soagă, past participle sopt), third conjugation^[1] Regional variants include soace, soalge, soga, sogi, solga, solja, sologi, stoga and suga; the present is sog or sogesc.^[2][3] Ciorănescu notes that the participle is not used in Transylvania;^[4][5] Dosoftei has sopt: „ne-au sopt și ne-au însuflețit” “he shaped us and breathed life into us”.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin subigō (“to work through, knead”), the source given by Pușcariu, the REW, Ciorănescu, the DLR and Wiktionary;^{[4][6][3][7][1]} Tiktin calls it probable.^{[4][6][3][7][1]} The Latin verb is a compound of sub- and agō (“to drive”).^[8] Tiktin explains the vowel by the same reduction of /-ubi-/ to /o/ seen in cot and nor from cubitus and nūbilum.^[7] The REW places beside it Spanish sobar and Portuguese sovar, both “to knead”.^[6][4] MDA2 and the DLR compare Hungarian szoggatani.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1683, in Dosoftei's Parimiar: „Soagem noi pita din aluat și deacii o și coacem” “we shape the loaf from the dough and then we bake it”.^[7][5]

Semantic evolution

The word belongs to bread-making: to break off a piece of risen dough and shape it into a loaf before it goes into the oven.^[2][3] Dosoftei already used it figuratively of God shaping man from clay.^[5][3] In northern Transylvania it widened to “to knead” dough, cheese curd and the like, and regional senses are “to roll in flour before baking” and, in the form sogi, “to make thin”.^[2][3][1] The word is now archaic or regional, recorded mainly in Transylvania, Bukovina and Maramureș.^[7][2]

Timeline

• 1683 – soagem “we shape (the loaf)” in Dosoftei's Parimiar.^[7][5]
• 1683 – the participle sopt in the figurative sense, in the same text.^[5]
• 1939 – Scriban lists it under the variant sog.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic, regional) To break a piece off risen dough and shape it into a loaf before baking.^[2][4][1]
2. (Transylvania) To knead dough, cheese curd and the like.^[2][1]
3. (regional) To roll in flour before putting in the oven.^[2][3]
4. (regional, in the form sogi) To make thin.^[2]

Related words

• Latin subigō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 921
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. soage
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. soage
5. ^ a b c d e f Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 267
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8372
7. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. soage
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1216