sughița

Forms

sughița (first-person singular present sughiț or sughit, third-person singular present sughiță, past participle sughițat) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *subgluttiō (“to hiccup, sob”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Tiktin explains the Vulgar Latin verb as a cross of singultō (“to sob, hiccup”) with gluttiō (“to swallow”), with the obscure ⟨sin-⟩ replaced by the familiar ⟨sub-⟩.^[3] DEX equates it with the Classical Latin verb.^[3][5] Ciorănescu adds that the link with singultiō (Philippide) is older than Romanian.^[2]

The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian sugljits and Megleno-Romanian sugliț.^[2][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Sicilian sugghiuzzari, Spanish sollozar and Portuguese soluçar; Italian singhiozzare and French sangloter go back to the parallel form *singluttiō.^[2][1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Varlaam's Cazania of 1643, in the sense “to sob”: „Pururea ... sughița după D-dzăul său” “always … he sobbed after his God”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The verb covers both the hiccup and the spasmodic breathing of hard weeping (or, rarely, laughing).^[4][3] Literature has it of crying: one sobs de plâns, and a hungry child sughița de frig și de foame.^[10][4] Figuratively it can mean to cry out sharply.^[4]

The noun sughiț “hiccup; sob” is a back-formation from the verb; it is recorded from the Anonymus Caransebesiensis glossary of the second half of the 17th century.^[4][5][2]

Timeline

• 1643 – sughița “sobbed” in Varlaam's Cazania.^[3][4]
• c. 1650-1700 – the noun sughiț in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis glossary.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To hiccup: După masă a sughițat o vreme.^[5][4][1]
2. (intransitive) To sob, to weep hard with gasping breaths (rarely of laughing).^[4][11]
3. (figurative) To cry out suddenly in a shrill voice.^[4]

Word family

• sughiț

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. sughița
3. ^ 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. sughița
4. ^ 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, 1049
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1071
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7943
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 990
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 280
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 299
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. sughița