sturz

Forms

sturz m (plural sturzi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin turdus (“thrush”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The final /z/ comes from the plural: turdī gave Romanian ⟨turzi⟩, from which a new singular was made.^[3][6][5] The initial /s/ is usually explained by the influence of Latin sturnus (“starling”).^[6][3][4][1] Ciorănescu, who starts from the variant turtus, thinks this contamination unnecessary, and rejects Pușcariu's Vulgar Latin *turdeus, since the plural explains the /z/.^[2][7] Cihac took the /s/ for a mere prefixed sound.^[8] The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *trosdos (“thrush”), with cognates such as Lithuanian strãzdas and Russian дрозд (drozd).^[9][1]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian sturdzu, also metathesised strudz.^[2][10][1] The Romance cognates include Italian tordo, Spanish tordo, Portuguese tordo and French tourd.^[7][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the word to 1492 from the Romanian words of the Slavonic–Romanian charters, and records a personal name Turz as early as 1183.^[5] In Romanian texts, Mihail Moxa's chronicle (1620) describes golden singing birds set on branches, among them two thrushes: „și doi sturzi”.^[4][5] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 glosses Slavonic щуръ with sturz.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The name covers several species of the genus Turdus, each with its own compound: sturz-de-vâsc the mistle thrush, sturz cântător the song thrush, sturz-de-iarnă the fieldfare.^[4][12][13] Folk tradition calls 12–18 March zilele sturzului “the days of the thrush”, because the thrushes arrive then, and a saying has it that the thrush brings the summer.^[5] Locally it also names the male blackbird (near Bistrița) and, in Maramureș, the golden oriole.^[12][14] The word gave surnames such as Sturza, Sturze and Sturzoiu.^[15]

Timeline

• 1492 – a record in the Slavonic–Romanian charters.^[5]
• 1620 – sturzi in Moxa's chronicle, MDA2's first record.^[4][5]
• 1649 – sturz in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1801 – sturz in Klein's dictionary, glossed with Hungarian húrosmadár.^[16]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it Latin turdus, German Krametsvogel.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. thrush: the name of several small songbirds of the genus Turdus, with a strong conical bill, brown back and pale breast spotted with brown, that eat insects, worms and fruit.^[3][4][1]
2. (regional) The blackbird; in Maramureș, the golden oriole.^[12][14]

Related words

• Aromanian sturdzu
• Latin turdus

Usage notes

Popular speech has the plural sturji beside sturzi, and the regional variants sturs, sturț and stulz.^[4][12] The surname Sturza is from the same word.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. sturz
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1063
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1027
5. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sturz
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8999
7. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 153
8. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 268
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 986
11. ^ a b 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. sturz
12. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sturz
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 279
14. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. sturz
15. ^ a b Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. sturz
16. ^ 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. 452
17. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 682