susan

Forms

susan m (uncountable)^[1] An older form susam appears in a history of 1715: „se face bumbac mult și susam peste toată Rumele” “much cotton and sesame grow all over Rumelia”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish صوسام (susam), as Ciorănescu, MDA2, Șăineanu, Scriban and Wiktionary state.^{[4][3][2][5][1]} Tiktin derives it instead from Modern Greek σουσάμι (sousámi), with final /n/ for /m/ as in caimacan.^[6] The Ottoman word comes from older سیسم (sisam), from Arabic سِمْسِم (simsim) or Ancient Greek σήσαμον (sḗsamon).^[1] Nişanyan names Persian or Arabic as the source of the Turkish word.^[7] The Greek word is recorded as early as Mycenaean.^[8] Wiktionary traces it to Old Aramaic and ultimately to Akkadian.^[1]

The word is found across the Balkans: Aromanian susame, Albanian susam and Serbo-Croatian susam.^[4][9] Papahagi takes the Aromanian word from Turkish, Pascu from Greek.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1703.^[6] MDA2 dates it to 1715, after Șăineanu, who quotes the form susam from a history of that year, on the cotton and sesame grown in Rumelia.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word names the plant Sesamum indicum and its oily seeds, sprinkled on pretzels, pressed for oil and made into tahini.^[3][11] A customs tariff of 1792 already prices it by weight as a trade good.^[2] It also names a sweet of honey or sugar with sesame seeds.^[3][4] In regional speech the name passed to other plants: the sow thistles (Sonchus) and the warty cabbage (Bunias orientalis).^[3][12]

Timeline

• 1703 – first record, according to Tiktin.^[6]
• 1715 – susam in a history, MDA2's first record.^[2][3]
• 1792 – susanul in a customs tariff.^[2]
• 1929 – Panțu's plant names list susan for several kinds of sow thistle.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. sesame, a hairy herbaceous plant of warm countries grown for its oily, edible seeds (Sesamum indicum).^[11][3][1]
2. The seeds of this plant, pressed for an edible oil or sprinkled on baked goods;^[11][3] ulei de susan “sesame oil”.^[11][3]
3. A sweet made of sugar or honey and sesame seeds.^[3][4]
4. (regional) The sow thistle (Sonchus) and the warty cabbage (Bunias orientalis).^[3][12]

Related words

• tahân
• Aromanian susame

Usage notes

MDA2 gives a plural susanuri for the seeds and the sweet.^[3] In Maramureș a separate word susan means the upper part of a village and the people who live there, formed on sus with the suffix -an.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Șăineanu, Lazăr (1900), Influența orientală asupra limbei și culturei române, vol. I: Introducerea; vol. II.1: Vorbele populare; vol. II.2: Vorbele istorice, literare, Indice, București: Socec, p. II.1, 332
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, 1076
4. ^ a b c d 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. susan
5. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1271
6. ^ 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. susan
7. ^ Nişanyan, Sevan, Nişanyan Sözlük: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojisi (online edition), p. s.v. susam
8. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. σήσαμον
9. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 997
10. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 2, 91
11. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1080
12. ^ a b c Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 295
13. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. susan