stâncă

Forms

stâncă f (plural stânci)^[1] Older texts also have stincă, with an old plural stânce;^[2][3] Maramureș has a form stângă.^[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is unknown: DEX, MDA2 and the DLR leave it unexplained.^[4][2][5] Two explanations have been put forward.^[3]

Ciorănescu thinks it may be from Old Church Slavonic стѣна (stěna, “wall”) through a diminutive *stěnъka, comparing Czech stěnka; this view goes back to Miklosich and Cihac and was taken up by Petrovici and Rosetti, and he finds it sound once Pușcariu's objections are weighed.^[3] Old Church Slavonic used the word for a rock wall or steep slope as well as a wall.^[6] Scriban also derived it from the Slavonic word and compared stenjăk “steep rock”.^[7] Wiktionary gives the Slavic origin as one possibility beside a substrate word, and calls stană “rock” a doublet.^[1]

Ciorănescu notes, however, that the word coincides with Italian stinca “mountainside”, found in Tuscan place names, which the REW traces to Lombardic skinko, the source of German Schinken “ham”, an explanation he finds insufficient;^[3][8] Latin had a noun stincus, recorded only in Isidore of Seville with a doubtful sense.^[3][8] Tiktin linked it to Old Church Slavonic станъ (stanŭ), and so with the doublet named above, or to a Vulgar Latin *stancus (“tired”) (compare Italian stanco and Romanian stâng “left”): a petra stanca would be the “tired”, motionless stone.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to a document of 1437.^[9] In a Romanian text it first appears in Simion Dascălul's chronicle, where a route over the mountain leads „prin stînci de piatră în două locuri” “through crags of stone in two places”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The main sense has stayed the same: a large mass of hard, bare rock with steep sides, and a block broken from it.^[2][5] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 glosses it with French rocher and roc, and a rock in deep water as écueil “reef”.^[10] An older, loose use for rock as a material is now dated.^[2][11]

Figurative senses build on the rock's hardness: de stâncă “strong; unmoved; cold” and a face stâncă “to turn to stone”; in the literary language the word also means an obstacle, and old texts used it for a support.^[2][4] Regional uses include “precipice” in Maramureș, in the form stângă, and “stone quarry” in Moldova.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 1437 – the first record, in a document cited by Tiktin.^[9]
• 17th century – stînci de piatră in Simion Dascălul's chronicle.^[2][5]
• 1831 – a tyrant's lair „săpată într-o stâncă” “carved into a rock” in a periodical.^[5]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary, with French rocher.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large block of rock, usually in the mountains, with steep, jagged sides; a crag or cliff: Caprele săreau din stâncă în stâncă. “The goats leapt from rock to rock.”^[4][2]
2. (figurative) A great obstacle or difficulty.^[4][11]

Word family

• stâncărie
• stâncos

Related words

• piatră
• stană
• Old Church Slavonic стѣна (stěna)

Usage notes

The phrase a merge din stâncă în stâncă means going or jumping from one high place to another.^[2] Cristal de stâncă is rock crystal.^[11] The similar stancă “jackdaw” is a different word, which Tiktin derives from the woman's name Stanca.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 980
3. ^ 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. stîncă
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1048
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. stîncă
6. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1244
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7995
9. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. stâncă
10. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 550
11. ^ 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, 240
12. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 286
13. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. stancă