sulă

Forms

sulă f (plural sule)^[1] The first record, in the Palia de la Orăștie, reads „Și-i pătrundză urechea lui cu o sulă” “and he shall pierce his ear with an awl” (Exodus 21:6).^[2][3] MDA2 records the variants sule and, popularly, suli.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sūbula (“awl”), through a syncopated Vulgar Latin *subla.^[5][4][2][1] The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian sulă, Megleno-Romanian sulă and Istro-Romanian sule.^[5][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Sardinian sula, Italian subbia, Friulian suble and Galician solla.^[8][5] Ciorănescu adds that the Iberian forms go back to subella.^[5][9] The Latin word was also borrowed into Greek as Modern Greek σούβλα (soúvla, “spit”).^[10]

The Latin word is a tool noun from suō (“to sew”), formed from Proto-Indo-European *syewH- (“to sew”) with the instrument suffix *-dʰlom.^[1]

The sense “penis” is, according to Ciorănescu, a euphemism in place of pulă;^[5][1] Wiktionary gives the slang sense an etymology of its own.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1581–1582, in the Palia de la Orăștie, where an awl pierces a slave's ear (Exodus 21:6); the Bible of 1688 has the same verse with sula.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The main sense has stayed the shoemaker's and furrier's tool.^[2][11] By likeness of shape the word came to name a weaving tool for picking threads, a typesetter's tool for corrections, an old lance and a thin fish, the pipefish.^[2][5][11] The vulgar sense “penis” is listed by Ciorănescu and the DLR.^[5][2]

Proverbs and idioms are old: Cantemir has „Sula de aur zidurile pătrunde” “a golden awl pierces walls”, that is, gold opens every door.^[3] A pune cuiva sula în coaste “to put the awl to someone's ribs” means to press someone hard to do something.^[12][2]

Timeline

• 1581–1582 – sulă “awl” in the Palia de la Orăștie (Exodus 21:6).^[3][2]
• 1688 – the same verse in the Bucharest Bible.^[3]
• early 18th century – Sula de aur zidurile pătrunde in Cantemir.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. awl: a thick steel needle, straight or curved, fixed in a handle, used by shoemakers and furriers to pierce leather.^[11][1]
2. A similar tool used in weaving or in typesetting.^[2]
3. (obsolete) A lance.^[5]
4. (vulgar, slang) penis.^[5][2][1]
5. (regional) The black-striped pipefish (Syngnathus nigrolineatus).^[11]

Word family

• sulac
• sulatic

Related words

• sul
• coase
• Latin subula

Usage notes

Sula și căciula “the awl and the cap” is said of a very poor man, and regionally of an idler.^[2] A confunda sula cu prefectura “to confuse the awl with the prefecture” is said of two things that have nothing in common.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sulă
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. sulă
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1052
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. sulă
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 280
7. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 356
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8403
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8356
10. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1358
11. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1072
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. sulă