tămâie

Forms

tămâie f (plural tămâi)^[1] The old texts write timiie: „aur și timiie” “gold and frankincense” in the Tetraevanghel of 1574;^[1] tămie and the regional tămâne also occur.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *thȳmānea (“incense”),^[4][1] an altered form of Latin thȳmiāma (“incense”), from Ancient Greek θυμίαμα (thumíama, “incense”).^[5][6][7] Candrea's *thym(i)anea is matched by Sardinian timanza and Old French timoine.^[5][1] The Greek noun is formed on θυμιάω (thumiáō, “to burn incense”).^[1]

Ciorănescu rules out a direct loan from Greek, or from the Slavic forms (Old Church Slavonic тимиꙗнъ (timijanŭ), Bulgarian тамян (tamjan), Serbo-Croatian tamjan) and Hungarian tömjén, as phonetically impossible.^[5][8][9] Cihac had taken it from the Slavonic word, and Șăineanu gave it a Slavic and Greek origin.^[10][11] MDA2 leaves it unexplained and only compares the Greek noun.^[3] The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian timnjamã and Megleno-Romanian tămǫnă.^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and the DLR first record the word in the Tetraevanghel of 1574, as timiie, among the gifts of the Magi.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word names the resin burned in church services and its smoke.^[4][2] The church use explains the phrase a fugi ca dracul de tămâie “to flee like the devil from incense”, to avoid something at all costs.^[4][3] Because incense is offered in honour, it came to mean “flattery”, and the verb tămâia means both “to cense” and “to flatter”.^[5][1] Regional phrases follow the same line: a umbla cu tămâie pe lângă cineva “to flatter someone”, a da dracului tămâie “to work in vain”.^[3] In slang tămâie is “boredom, disgust”.^[5]

Derivatives name fragrant plants and wines: tămâioară “violet” and tămâioasă, a muscat grape and its wine.^[5]

Timeline

• 1574 – timiie in the Tetraevanghel, the first record.^[3][2]
• c. 1664 – tămâia in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic “frankincense”.^[13]
• 1688 – tămâie in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]
• 1825 – Tîmîe, glossed Latin thus “incense”, in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. incense, frankincense: a fragrant resin from the bark of the frankincense tree, hardened into irregular yellowish or reddish grains, which gives a strong aromatic smoke when burned in religious services.^[4][3]
2. (figurative) flattery, excessive praise.^[1][5][11]
3. (slang) Boredom, disgust.^[5]

Word family

• tămâia
• tămâier
• tămâierniță
• tămâioară
• tămâioasă
• tămâios
• tămâiță

Related words

• Aromanian timnjamã
• Ancient Greek θυμίαμα (thumíama)

Usage notes

The plural is tămâi.^[3] Compare the verb tămâia “to cense; to flatter”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tămâie
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1169
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1108
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. tămâie
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8722
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
9. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
10. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 400
11. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 638
12. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1009
13. ^ 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. tămâia
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 37:25
15. ^ 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. 709