spermă

Forms

spermă f (plural sperme)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian sperma, also borrowed from French sperme, as MDA2, the DLR and NODEX give it.^[2][3][4] DEX and Wiktionary give French alone,^[5][1] and Marcu adds Latin and Greek.^[6]

The Italian word, a learned borrowing recorded from the 14th century, and the French one come from Late Latin sperma, borrowed from Ancient Greek σπέρμα (spérma, “seed”), a derivative of σπείρω (speírō, “to sow”).^[7][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Amfilohie Hotiniul's Gramatica fizicii, a translation from Italian known from a late 18th-century manuscript, which lists sperma among the soft parts of the body.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the one physiological sense.^[5] An old form sperm is recorded, and the older native word for it is sămânță.^[2][3] In 1870 Costinescu defined it as the seed from which an animal is born.^[10] Slang has many words for it.^[11]

Timeline

• late 18th century – sperma in Amfilohie Hotiniul's Gramatica fizicii.^[2][3]
• 1870 – defined in Costinescu's dictionary.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. semen, sperm: the fluid secreted by the male sex glands, which contains the spermatozoa.^[5][1]

Related words

• spermatic
• spermatogen
• spermatogeneză
• spermatozoid
• spermicid
• spermiogeneză
• sămânță

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 952
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. spermă
4. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. spermă
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1039
6. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
7. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. sperma
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 543
11. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. spermă