spurc

Forms

spurc n (plural spurcuri)^[1]

Etymology

The Academy dictionaries make it inherited from Latin spurcus (“dirty, filthy, foul”), the adjective used as a noun.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Scriban gives the same source, and the REW derives the Romanian sense “devil” from it.^[6][7]

Others see a deverbal noun from spurca: DLRM gives only this, and DER gives both explanations.^[8][9] Ștef sets out both views as well.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Klein's dictionary of 1801 has spurc as the name of a disease of small children that breaks out on the face like buboes.^[11] DLRLV, which covers the old literary language of 1640–1780, records it from a Banat glossary in the sense “mouse”.^[5] MDA2's first record is Petru Maior's history (1834), in the sense “multitude”, of the wandering peoples among whom the Romanians lived.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

All the senses are regional or popular.^[3] The neuter noun means excrement or filth, a crowd of something (followed by de and a plural, in Oltenia and Transylvania), the discharge after childbirth, and a number of illnesses: skin rashes, pimples and boils, sores on a cow's udder in the Banat, and rheumatism in Transylvania.^[3][2][6] In the Hațeg region it named illnesses such as rheumatism and typhus.^[12] In Maramureș it means the sores on a child's head, which local belief blamed on a visit from a menstruating woman.^[10]

As a masculine noun, with the plural spurci, it names the wolf, the mouse (in the Banat and Transylvania) and the devil.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1801 – spurc, a childhood disease, in Klein's dictionary.^[11]
• 1834 – spurc “multitude” in Petru Maior's history of the Romanians.^[3][2]
• 1915 – spurc for rheumatism and typhus in the Hațeg glossary.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) excrement of people or animals; filth.^[3][4][1]
2. (regional, followed by de and a plural) A great number, a multitude: un spurc de copii.^[3][2]
3. (regional) The discharge after childbirth; lochia.^[3][6]
4. (popular) A name for skin diseases such as hives, pimples and boils.^[3][13]
5. (Banat) Sores on a cow's udder.^[3]
6. (Transylvania) Rheumatism.^[3][6]
7. (regional; masculine, plural spurci) The wolf; in the Banat and Transylvania, the mouse; the devil.^[3][2]

Related words

• spurca

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. spurc
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 966
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. spurc
5. ^ a b Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 270
6. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1234
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8194
8. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 793
9. ^ 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. spurca
10. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. spurc
11. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 448
12. ^ a b Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 334
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 206